Meat Your Enemy

Aligning Orders of Worth for Radical Social Change

Radical social change is here conceived as involving beliefs, values, and conceptions that are both “deep” and “wide.” In writing of phenomena being “deep,” we follow the “critical sociology” literature more than the “sociology of critique” literature, and refer to the fact that different beliefs, values, and conceptions can be strongly habitualized (Bourdieu, 1977), and can remain more or less unquestioned by both the scholarly and non-scholarly communities. Prior to the Copernican revolution, beliefs regarding the earth’s centrality within the universe appear to have been very deep (e.g., Kuhn, 1996, Chap. 7). And in present day Western societies, beliefs regarding differences between (sentient) humans and (unthinking) matter are also very deep (e.g., Descola, 2013a).

By writing of “wide,” on the other hand, we refer to the fact that different beliefs, values, and conceptions can also be more or less popular. To illustrate, we note that Christian fundamentalists within the United States have been very deeply opposed to the theory of evolution over the last 30 years (Miller, Scott, & Okamoto, 2006). The fact, however, that 71% of adults aged under 30 in the United States now think that evolution is true suggests that creationist beliefs are having an increasingly narrow influence (Gross, 2015). Beliefs regarding differences between (sentient) humans and (unthinking) matter, by way of contrast, remain both “deep” and “‘wide”: as indicated by both Christian fundamentalists and the rest of Western society tending to unthinkingly presume that the internal experiential reality of human kind is superior to whatever experiences matter, nature, or animals, are presumed to have.

This deep and basic assumption underpins the widespread practice of using animals as means for human ends, such as the use of beagles and cats in cosmetic and medical experiments; the eating of cows, pigs, ducks and fish; the skinning of animals to produce fur and leather; the racing of greyhounds; the “petting” and “zooing” of animals. On the other hand, it is also why (most) humans find slavery, rape, and murder (of humans) abhorrent.

In trying to change such wide and deep conceptions—and the policies and practices that they inform (and that subsequently inform them)—animal rights activists face considerable difficulties. In everyday practice, this is revealed by the suggestion that the worst criminals dehumanize their (human) victims or treat them like animals (Martí & Fernández, 2013; cf. Patterson, 2002; Spiegel, 1996). Moreover, it is revealed by the manner in which children are taught to make important distinctions between animals and humans before they can clearly articulate them: for example, they are taught that biting (into) dead animals and eating them is ok, but that biting, let alone eating, other (dead) humans, is not. As they get older, children are also taught, more formally and explicitly, that animal products are part of a healthy diet (e.g., the United States Department of Agriculture’s current “MyPlate” initiative).

As radical can be defined in different ways, we emphasize that our conception is broadly consistent with definitions that associate it with “thoroughgoing or extreme” change (dictionary.com). Moreover, we note that our definition resonates with Hache and Latour’s (2010, p. 313) suggestion that radical critics seek to make “an extension of the class of [morally valuable] beings,” and that it also resonates with Boltanski (2009/2011, p. 109) illustrating existential change by referring to a woman who murders her son being subsequently transformed into a woman who commits euthanasia. On the other hand, we note that our conception of radical is more thoroughgoing than that advanced by institutional theorists, who have tended to write of radical with regard to relatively narrow transformations in such fields as the business service professions (e.g., Greenwood & Hinings, 1996; Greenwood, Suddaby, & Hinings, 2002).

By definition, then, we conceive of radical change agents as confronting a popular force that perceives a strong interest in maintaining the status quo. More pointedly, and in addition to being able to create conflicts and compromises, we propose that radical activists can try to align common worlds to achieve their ends. As noted in the preceding section, common worlds are brought into conflict when they are used to generate different value judgments about the same phenomena (Boltanski & Thévenot, 1991/2006, p. 218), and into compromise when clashes between them are suspended or overlooked to enable their compositional support of the same phenomena (Boltanski & Thévenot, 1991/2006, pp. 277-288). By way of contrast, we propose that common worlds are brought into alignment when they simultaneously value the same phenomena in accord with their own, separate, internal logics. Moreover, and as Table 1 summarizes, we propose that the alignment of common worlds differs from the construction of composite setups on the basis of their being marked by unanimity between common worlds, and not their mismatch.

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Table 1.

Four Types of Common World Relations.

Relations	Descriptors
Common World Conflicts are characterized by antagonism between two or more common worlds. For example, the “inspired world” of art can conflict with the “market world” due to the latter’s “subjection to money” (Boltanski & Thévenot, 1991/2006, p. 239), and the obscuring of creative inspiration associated with being a “sell out.”	Confront, tension, resistance, different nature, foreign, disagreement, clash, denunciation (Boltanski & Thévenot, 1991/2006, pp. 216-217, 223-225).
Common World Composite Setups are characterized by a mismatch between common worlds. A “machine operator” offering a gift to an “expert” who has come to analyze the machine the operator works on provides a clear illustration of an “ugly” combination of the “industrial world” and the “domestic world” (Boltanski & Thévenot, 1991/2006, p. 239).	Monstrous, awkward, anxiety, disparate, incongruous, troubling, strange (Boltanski & Thévenot, 1991/2006, pp. 216-217, 225-227, 277).
Common World Compromises seek to avoid conflicts between common worlds by refusing to privilege one common world over another, and by agreeing to negotiate some sort of fragile agreement between them. Compromises between the “domestic world” and “market world” are commonplace. For example, a bank employee is likely to suggest to “clients/friends” that “a faithful friend is a solvent client” (Boltanski & Thévenot, 1991/2006, p. 278). “Clients/friends,” on the other hand, might respond that a good friend “pulls strings” to overcome any such concerns.	Come to terms, suspend a clash without settling it, equivalence, ambiguous, general interest, common good, work out, stabilize, build bridges (Boltanski & Thévenot, 1991/2006, pp. 277-281).
Common World Alignments are characterized by unforced unanimity between common worlds; by harmonious agreement between common worlds in their own terms. A good example of such alignment is when a work produced entirely within the “inspired world” (e.g., an album released by a hitherto underground musician) or “industrial world” (e.g., an electric car produced by a devoted and single-minded engineer) subsequently proves to be very, very profitable (and thus consistent with the “market world”).	Overdetermined justification, common world agreement, plural consensus.

Through aligning common worlds, radical agents can increasingly minimize the capacity for incumbent beneficiaries of a status quo to conflictually deploy specific common worlds against their critique on the one hand, and to (re)create complex common world compromises that help maintain the status quo on the other. This second capacity in particular is of fundamental importance to the maintenance of extant policies, practices, and normative values (Boltanski & Thévenot, 1991/2006). Accordingly, we suggest that there are good reasons for thinking that the activities of radical activists will often be helpfully conceived in terms of the alignment of common worlds, and in terms of their diminishing the ability of incumbent beneficiaries to ambiguously combine common worlds in variable compromises.

While it is possible to imagine a given task of alignment occurring instantaneously, the nature of radical change means that it will only ever be concretely realizable overtime. Indeed, we propose that, as the “weight of history” favors reproduction of the status quo (e.g., the notion of path dependency), agents of radical change will often need to wait for, seek out, or enable material developments that change the results of common world “tests” (Cloutier & Langley, 2013; Gond et al., 2016).

To illustrate, we note that the Napoleonic Wars and the emergence of industrial capitalism provided material developments that diminished the worth of British colonial slave labor, relative to free wage labor, when subject to civic and market tests in the early 19th century (Davis, 1987). In a broadly similar fashion, the First World War made it easier for suffragists to demonstrate the equal worth of women (to men) through various civic and market tests in the early 20th century (Gullace, 2014).

Given such considerations, we propose that radical change agents can be helpfully conceived as seeking to align common worlds in an opportunistic and cumulative manner. In writing of an opportunistic element, we simply note that radical change agents can make use of events or world happenings that they have not designed (Hoffman & Ocasio, 2001). Clearly, the Napoleonic Wars and First World War were not designed by abolitionists and suffragists respectively, but nevertheless provided them with opportunities by which to further their respective radical agendas. The cumulative element, on the other hand, refers to how radical change agents can use opportunities to successively build up a collection of tests within a given common world. The history of science, which shows that it is a critical mass of tests, rather than “one black swan,” that leads to the development of a paradigm changing scientific theory (Kuhn, 1996), points toward the importance of such accumulation.

In light of such, we propose that agents of radical change similarly need to construct and undertake a succession of “state of worth tests” (Dansou & Langley, 2012, pp. 511-512) or “truth tests” (Boltanski, 2009/2011, p. 106) within a given common world if they are to prove capable of aligning it with their radical agenda. Most simply, we suggest that one “state of worth” test will in effect never result in a given set of deep and wide social practices being deemed illegitimate from the perspective of a given common world.

Animal Rights Organizations as Radical Change Agents

Animal rights organizations have a radical agenda. They seek to disrupt the deeply institutionalized (Western) distinction that is drawn between humans and (other) animals (Descola, 2013a, Latour, 2004), and propose that in most important ways, humans and animals are morally equivalent. In particular, they emphasize that just as humans have experiential realities (Regan, 2004) within which they can experience pain and pleasure (Singer, 1995), so too do animals.

These core arguments for animal rights take various forms and are informed by various (and commonly opposed) philosophical traditions. Regan (2004), for example, adopts a broadly Kantian line when he argues that animals are “subjects of a life” that have inherent value and “rights,” whereas Singer adopts a utilitarian line in arguing that animals need to be “liberated” from pain and suffering (Singer, 1995). Despite the often considerable and, depending on the context, very important, philosophical differences between these and other arguments for animal rights— such as Adams’ (1990) feminist and critical perspective, or Patterson’s (2002) and Spiegel’s (1996) more anthropological and discursive arguments—what all such variously styled arguments have in common is that they can be situated within what Boltanski and Thévenot (1991/2006) conceive of as the civic common world. The reason why is that they all construct a community within which humans and animals have equal moral standing in fundamentally important regards. Thus, and just as humans cannot be killed or enslaved for food, clothing, or entertainment, actors for animal rights—such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and its affiliates, a non-government organization with more than 5 million members and supporters; and the “by any means necessary” Animal Liberation Front (ALF, 2014)—generally emphasize “that animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, or use for entertainment” (PETA, 2014a).

In constructing this community, animal rights organizations such as PETA and Vegetarians’ International Voice for Animals (Viva!) act as “spokespeople” (Callon, 1986; Latour, 2004, p. 64) for animals who cannot speak by themselves. While this inability of animals to speak for themselves points toward an important distinction between (many) humans and animals in general, it should not be overstated (Callon, 1986; Callon & Latour, 1981; Latour, 2004, p. 70). Indeed, it is commonplace for humans to speak for other humans that currently cannot, or will never have the capacity to, speak at all (e.g., those suffering from severe physical or mental disturbances). Nevertheless, we also recognize that spokespeople can betray those they claim to represent (Latour, 2004, p. 65).

While there can be overlap between what are referred to as the animal rights and animal welfare movements respectively, it is important to distinguish between them. As already indicated, the animal rights movement has a radical agenda: It is (categorically) opposed to the use of animals for human ends. This means that animal rights activists like ALF, PETA, and Viva! are opposed to the consumption of meat, fish, and dairy; the use of leather and wool; and are (generally) opposed to vivisection. The animal welfare movement, by way of contrast, has a reformative agenda: for it only seeks to ensure that animals are treated better or more “humanely,” and is non-abolitionist when it comes to animals being used as means for human ends (e.g., Marcus, 2005). The RSPCA (the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) is a classic example of an animal welfare organization, in that it only encourages people to be “kinder” to animals (that will often get killed). Indeed, the RSPCA (2016) supports a range of “RSPCA Assured” meat products (e.g., beef, chicken, veal), and lists McDonalds as one of its partners. Suffice it to note that PETA considers such an assurance scheme “meaningless as far as animal welfare goes” (PETA UK, 2016).

Further to the above noted tools of philosophical and theoretical reasoning that animal rights organizations deploy to morally justify the equality of humans and animals within the civic common world, animal rights organizations also commonly seek to align their radical agenda with at least three other common worlds: that is, the industrial, fame, and green worlds. In terms of the first of these worlds, we quickly note that animal rights organizations have continuously emphasized that the production and consumption of animals for food and clothing is inefficient. Most generally, animal rights organizations continuously emphasize that animal products are inefficient in terms of human health (e.g., by emphasizing links between animal products and heart disease) and resource usage (e.g., by emphasizing the purportedly huge levels of water consumption that are required to turn animals into food).

The common world of fame, on the other hand, is often appealed to through the advertising, marketing, and public relations activities of animal rights organizations. PETA for example, are currently endorsed or supported by such celebrities as Paul McCartney of the Beatles, comic and TV host Ellen Degeneres, comic Ricky Gervais, actress Pamela Anderson, and actor Joaquin Phoenix. In arranging such endorsements, PETA act on the widespread belief that people wish to replicate the values and practices of celebrities they identify with (e.g., Basil, 1996; Cashmore, 2006; Fraser & Brown, 2002). Nevertheless, we also note that PETA’s infamous use of female celebrities and (naked) “attractive” women—as per the Alfred Hitchcock inspired poster featuring Pamela Anderson in Figure 1 below—has its critics (e.g., Papon, 2012).

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Figure 1.

Pamela Anderson: PETA’s use of famous women.

Finally, we highlight that animal rights organizations also commonly deploy tests and notions of (un)worthiness from the green common world to justify their objectives. As PETA (2014b) succinctly put it,

. . . raising animals for food damages the environment more than just about anything else that we do. Whether it’s . . . global warming, massive water or air pollution, or soil erosion, raising animals for food is wreaking havoc on the Earth.

The Work of Aligning Common Worlds

We now present some of the alignment activities that animal rights organizations have undertaken, focusing in particular on how they have mobilized material developments, artefacts, and tests. As animal rights organizations are most clearly associated with the civic common world (and the philosophical arguments associated therewith), we outline some of the alignment work they have undertaken with regard to the industrial and green common worlds, two worlds they are less obviously associated with.

Aligning Orders of Worth From the Industrial World

According to Boltanski and Thévenot (1991/2006, pp. 204-205), the “ordering of the industrial world is based on the efficiency of beings, their performance, their productivity . . . Waste, spoilage, rejects, pollution, deterioration . . . are all negative signs of worth . . . ” As PETA’s “Feeding the Future” (2011a) poster succinctly illustrates (see Figure 2), animal rights activists commonly propose that the production and consumption of animal products is grossly inefficient, and thus incompatible with “orders of worth” in the industrial world.

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Figure 2.

The stratified alignment of the industrial world.

Like Singer’s (1995) argument for “animal liberation,” contemporary arguments opposed to the inefficiencies of meat production are utilitarian in form. Furthermore, they are often traced back to the publication of Diet for a Small Planet by Frances Moore Lappé in 1971. In this work, Lappé castigated meat production for being wasteful and for contributing to food scarcity. Animal rights organizations continue to advance broadly similar arguments in an opportunistic and cumulative manner. Further to their “Feeding the Future” poster, then, PETA (2014c) currently use their website to note that

Raising animals for food is grossly inefficient, because while animals eat large quantities of grain, soybeans, oats, and corn, they only produce comparatively small amounts of meat, dairy products, or eggs in return. This is why more than 70 percent of the grain and cereals that we grow in . . . [the United States] are fed to farmed animals.

In making such claims, PETA commonly reference both individuals and organizations that others would consider experts. Regarding the issue of water for example, they write that,

Nearly half of all the water used in the United States goes to raising animals for food. In 2008, John Anthony Allan, a professor at King’s College London and the winner of the prestigious Stockholm Water Prize, urged people worldwide to go vegetarian because of the tremendous waste of water involved with eating animals.

It takes more than 2,400 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of meat, while growing 1 pound of wheat only requires 25 gallons. You save more water by not eating a pound of meat than you do by not showering for six months! (PETA, 2014c)

And in referring to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization this time (Steinfeld et al., 2006), PETA employs a similar tactic by noting that

According to the United Nations, raising animals for food (including land used for grazing and land used to grow feed crops) now uses a staggering 30 percent of the Earth’s land mass. More than 260 million acres of U.S. forest have been cleared to create cropland to grow grain to feed farmed animals, and according to scientists at the Smithsonian Institution, the equivalent of seven football fields of land is bulldozed worldwide every minute to create more room for farmed animals. (PETA, 2014c)

A less intuitive effort that PETA has made to align their agenda with the industrial order of worth involves their promotion of in vitro meat (PETA, 2014d), or shmeat (sheets of lab-grown meat). Shmeat builds upon developments in tissue engineering, and has advanced rapidly since the turn of the century. Further to other actors such as NASA and the Dutch Government (Macintyre, 2007), PETA has played a role in actively encouraging the development of shmeat through “the ongoing promotion of the technology; a $1 million prize to whoever first sells a significant quantity . . . in the United States; and its funding of a three-year post-doc research post at an American university [the University of Missouri]” (Stephens, 2013, p. 175). Although PETA’s efforts to promote the commercialization of shmeat clearly involves market orders of worth, there is a general consensus that—as the commercialization of shmeat is still some time off (perhaps 20 years), and because the scientists involved are less motivated by business than they are by research—these specific efforts are best conceived as promoting science (Engber, 2008; Schwartz, 2008).

Within this broader context, PETA’s founder Ingrid Newkirk (2013) has suggested that August 5, 2013, will be remembered as a momentous day. The reason being that it was on this day that Professor Mark Post of the University of Masstricht first cooked, served to others, and himself ate, “the world’s most expensive hamburger, made from meat grown in Petri dishes in his lab” (Jha, 2013b). The hamburger cost £250,000 pounds, was the culmination of 5 years of research, and provided a “proof of concept” (Jha, 2013a).

This hamburger provides a fundamentally important “state of worth” (Dansou & Langley, 2012, pp. 511-512) or “truth” (Boltanski, 2009/2011, p. 106) test: for it demonstrates the material viability of in vitro meats. To borrow some famous words from Winston Churchill, it points toward humanity’s possible escape from “the absurdity of growing a whole chicken in order to eat the breast or wing, by growing these parts separately under a suitable medium” (Churchill, 1931, para. 12).

Aligning Orders of Worth From the Green World

In 2006, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) released a report titled Livestock’s Long Shadow: Environmental Issues and Options (Steinfeld et al., 2006). As evidenced by their continuing reference to it, this report has proven a watershed moment for animal rights organizations (e.g., PETA, 2014e; Viva! 2014). The report states that

The livestock sector emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global . . . it should be a major policy focus when dealing with problems of land degradation, climate change and air pollution, water shortage and water pollution and loss of biodiversity. (Steinfeld et al., 2006, p. xx)

By clearly linking so many environmental concerns to the livestock sector, the FAO report proposes that the use of animals for human food is inconsistent with the environmental “mode of evaluation” associated with the green common world (Thévenot, Moody, & Lafaye, 2000). While all of the environmental concerns raised by Livestock’s Long Shadow are important for the green common world, the report’s suggestion that the “livestock sector is . . . responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas [GHG] emissions . . . a higher share than transport” (Steinfeld et al., 2006, p. xxi) has garnered the most attention and controversy (e.g., Fairlie, 2008).

Although the FAO has subsequently revised their headline figure down to “14.5 percent of human-induced GHG emissions,” they continue to acknowledge that “the livestock sector plays an important role in climate change” (Gerber et al., 2013, p. xii). More broadly, a variety of studies suggest that greenhouse gas emissions would be significantly reduced by the widespread adoption of a vegan diet. Eshel and Martin (2006), for example, conclude that if a person eating the “mean US diet” (comprised of meat, dairy and other food products) were to adopt a vegan diet, then they would reduce their GHG emissions by 6.2%.

It is within this broader context that PETA has taken the opportunity of subjecting a number of prominent individuals and organizations that are purportedly committed to addressing climate change to “state of worth tests” (Dansou & Langley, 2012, pp. 511-512) or “truth tests” (Boltanski, 2009/2011, p. 106). Perhaps most notably, and following on from his 2006 climate change “call to action” film and book, An Inconvenient Truth, PETA has subjected former U.S. Vice President Al Gore to an ongoing test of his Green credentials.

The test began in 2007 when PETA proposed that Gore’s own inconvenient truth was that the quickest way by which to reduce GHG emissions was through diet change, and subsequently asked in a graphical and well publicized manner, whether or not Gore was “too chicken to go vegan?” (see Figure 3).

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Figure 3.

“Calling out” Al Gore: A situational-opportunity.

PETA subsequently deployed a “sexy mother earth” to a Gore book signing in 2009, and remonstrated that Gore’s “hypocritical addiction to meat is getting in the way of his call to go green.” And following Gore’s (2011) critique of President Obama’s climate change policies, PETA’s Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman wrote a letter to Gore stating that

As you know, going vegan will help reduce animal suffering, your waistline, and your impact on the planet, so it’s a win-win situation for everyone . . . After all, it wouldn’t do to challenge the president’s “climate of denial” while ignoring your own book’s excellent advice. (PETA, 2011b)

Finally, PETA congratulated Gore on his recent decision to go vegan (Eilperin, 2013) when they wrote that

We knew it would happen. No one who cares about climate change as much as Al Gore does can continue to support one of the leading causes of the phenomenon: factory farming. His Live Earth benefit concerts promote going vegan, and now Al Gore himself has made the switch to a plant-based diet. (Kretzer, 2013)

Importantly, PETA have long applied similar tests to other actors (e.g., PETA, 2008). Most recently, they have publicly endorsed the 2014 film Cowspiracy, which, much like Livestock’s Long Shadow, emphasizes that

Animal agriculture is the leading cause of deforestation, water consumption and pollution, is responsible for more greenhouse gases than the transportation industry, and is a primary driver of rainforest destruction, species extinction, habitat loss, topsoil erosion, ocean “dead zones,” and virtually every other environmental ill. Yet it goes on, almost entirely unchallenged.

Furthermore, the film documents filmmaker Kip Andersen as he

. . . approaches leaders in the environmental movement . . . [and] increasingly uncovers what appears to be an intentional refusal to discuss the issue of animal agriculture . . .

PETA’s endorsement of the film, in this last regard in particular, is loud and clear when they note that Andersen and the film producer, Keegan Kuhn, were entirely justified in their concern:

. . . to know why the high-profile environmental groups that should be challenging the meat and dairy industries were essentially ignoring them . . . and put representatives from Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and other well-known environmental groups in the hot seat and ask . . . them. (Moore, 2014)

Aligning Common Worlds in an Opportunistic and Cumulative Fashion

Hitherto, the French pragmatism literature has a priori emphasized the “incompatibility” (Boltanski, 2009/2011, p. 28) or “insurmountable opposition” (Taupin, 2012, p. 533) of common worlds. For reasons detailed in the above case, we consider this presupposition overstated and unhelpful. In particular, it has tended to obscure the recognition of common worlds being aligned.

While the alignment of common worlds is harmonious in that a group of common worlds need to unanimously agree, in a fashion consistent with their own varying criteria and agendas, that a given set of (potential) empirical developments are of positive worth, such common world alignment is not necessarily peaceful. Indeed, the above described efforts that PETA and other animal rights activists have made in aligning common worlds are marked by controversy and disruption, and are both conflictual and sensational. Neither Al Gore nor the environmental non-governmental organization Greenpeace, for example, invited animal rights activists to subject their own policies and practices to the sort of environmental tests that they commonly seek to impose on others.

On the other hand, the initial contesting of assumptions underpinning the FAO’s claim that the livestock industry was responsible for a massive 18% of global greenhouse emissions (e.g., Fairlie, 2008) highlights that whenever a test suggests that a common world should no longer support a status quo (e.g., the livestock industry), these tests will be perceived as controversial and disruptive. In light of such, it is unsurprising that those with a vested interest in various forms of animal exploitation will not simply accept that their activities are inconsistent with the technical efficiency mode of evaluation associated with the industrial common world. Thus, and at the same time that animal rights activists have sought to promote the efficiency of a vegan diet, shmeat, and so on, the livestock industry, and other interested parties, have proposed such things as “pig towers,” or what amounts to a more efficient method of intensive pig farming (Driessen, 2012).

The point we are making is that, although the act of aligning common worlds seeks to avoid, or minimize, the possibility of conflict between common worlds, it nevertheless has to create conflict within each of the common worlds it seeks to align. Indeed, if radical activists, individuals, or organizations did not have to identify or create evidence or tests designed to undermine or destabilize a common world’s support for a given status quo, then they would not be radical. Furthermore, we note that the act of aligning common worlds can also involve tactics that many would find repugnant. PETA’s 2003 campaign/exhibit, “Holocaust on Your Plate,” for example, juxtaposed pictures of (intensively) farmed animals with pictures of Holocaust victims, and proved very upsetting for some (Snaza, 2004). Moreover, PETA is routinely criticized for their highly sexualized/pornographic campaigns on the basis that they degrade women (and men) (e.g., Bindel, 2010).

Whatever the instrumental merit of such shock tactics, our case has shown that PETA and other animal rights activists can be conceived as employing them, alongside other less controversial tactics, in a manner that align common worlds in an opportunistic and cumulative manner. In terms of the Green common world, for example, our analysis has shown how the likes of PETA opportunistically made use of the UN FAO report in 2006, Livestock’s Long Shadow, to highlight the multitudinous ways in which the livestock sector is destroying the environment. Our analysis has also shown how PETA subsequently subjected Al Gore to an environmental test following his release of An Inconvenient Truth. While neither of these events was created by animal rights activists, they were opportunistically and cumulatively used to further their agenda.

As animal rights activists are yet to prove successful in their aims, in that the use of animals as a means for human ends remains widespread throughout a great many parts of the world, we do not suggest that the work of aligning common worlds is easy, or some sort of radical panacea. Nevertheless, our writing of radical social change as being opportunistic and cumulative is supported by institutional theorists who dialectically propose that radical actors need to make the most of normative and material contradictions as and when they arise (e.g., Benson, 1977; Seo & Creed, 2002). Additionally, our showing that animal rights activists can be understood as working on, or as working within, multiple common worlds simultaneously, empirically echoes more conceptual work in moral philosophy: which suggests that (radical) social change will need to be legitimated within multiple justificatory (Habermas, 1990, Chap. 1) or ethical (Nickel, 2007) spheres or traditions if it is to prove robust and sustainable.

Pluralism and Radical Social Change

A recent critique of French pragmatism suggests it is limited to perceiving values as a tool for justification, and not as a motivating factor (Thornton et al., 2012, p. 9). While there is some sense to this critique, our case suggests it is ultimately misdirected. In particular, it seems difficult to deny that the various arguments that animal rights activists make regarding the moral equality of humans and (many) other animals, and that are broadly associated with the civic common world, motivate their daily existence. The decision of philosophers such as Regan (2004) and Singer (1995) to avoid consuming meat, for example, seems fairly obviously motivated by tests of equality and solidarity, by notions of rules and rights, and so on. More generally, we note that, as motivations are consciously justified in many instances, the distinction that Thornton et al. (2012, p. 9) wish to make between motivation and justification is easily strained (cf. Vaisey, 2009).

More importantly, the case has shown how a plurality of economies of worth and common worlds can be mobilized by radical activists whose ultimate aim is to make currently marginal moral positions or normative values mainstream. As noted throughout the article, the notion of aligning common worlds, rather than relating them in conflict or compromise, has hitherto been overlooked by French pragmatist writings. It has also been ignored by writings on organization and radical change more generally, which have tended to emphasize that radical activists mobilize one set of values against another when seeking to replace, rather than reform, a given status quo (den Hond & de Bakker, 2007; Whelan, 2013). Similarly, the general idea of alignment has not received a great deal of attention in works informed by the institutional logics tradition: for it also tends to emphasize that diverse logics can be related in terms of replacement and conflict, blending and compromise, or separation and segregation (e.g., Thornton et al., 2012, Chap. 7).

A major reason for this is that all these literatures tend to analytically focus on specific sectors, or fields, of society. The ultimate aim of radical activists as we have conceived them, however, is not to change one part of society, but to change society in full. In particular, we note that animal rights activists and organizations want governments and businesses, (other) activists and non-government organizations, schools, families, citizens, church-goers, consumers and so on—that is, individuals and collectives more generally—to all agree to the import of respecting animal rights, and of refraining from treating animals as simple means.

Clearly, the conception of radical change we are advancing is much broader, and much more “social,” than the conceptions one finds among leading works in institutional theory. Thus, and whereas institutional theorists suggest that changing combinations and roles of accounting and legal firms can be considered radical (e.g., Greenwood & Hinings, 1996), we suggest they are better conceived as relatively narrow (field level) and shallow (superficial): for they do not upset core distinctions that structure society-wide phenomenal existence.

Nevertheless, recent work that draws on institutional theory, and that relates to the Holocaust (Martí & Fernández, 2013), has explored changes that we would consider radical: for the changes explored in this work relate to fundamental ontological distinctions (e.g., who is, and is not, human) that underpin a huge range of social policies and practices. Although French pragmatists would likely suggest that the tragic actuality of the holocaust, and the more progressive possibility of animal rights, illustrates the “uncertainty that threatens social arrangements and hence the fragility of reality” (Boltanski, 2009/2011, p. 54), we suggest that such extreme examples point more toward the relative robustness of many social norms and practices. In particular, we emphasize that, despite the best efforts of animal rights activists, the eating of meat remains well entrenched.

In addition to benefitting from revisiting the likes of Bourdieu (e.g., 1977), then, who is often presented as their bête noir, our work suggests that French pragmatists would benefit from increased engagement with the likes of Descola (2013a, 2013b). Just as we have done in the present work, Descola’s work points to the importance of ontological distinctions that, in many ways, come before the economies of worth that have hitherto interested French pragmatists (cf. Boltanski, 2004/2013). Most Western people, for instance, simply presume that all animals are in an ontologically separate category to all humans, and only think of using a common world’s values to justify such an ontological distinction when engaged in a conflict there over. As a result, it seems that if we are to understand why such distinctions exist, then it might be helpful to supplement, or look beyond, the economies of worth framework. While other perspectives by which to generate understanding of ontological distinctions exist (e.g., Cumpsty, 1991), we think that Descola’s work could prove particularly helpful.

Limitations

Given our relatively broad conceptual purposes, this essay is necessarily limited in a number of regards. In the first instance, the article is propositionally limited. Thus, and while we do suggest that radical social change will be significantly enabled by the alignment of an increasing number of social worlds, we do not suggest when, if ever, such alignment will reach a “tipping point,” and actually result in the change desired. Similarly, we do not explain whether or not conflict or compromise could ever prove sufficient for radical change.

Our general concern to conceive alignment has also resulted in us not paying full and clear attention to the micro-means by which this might be achieved. Perhaps most notably, we have not been able to fully engage with the science and technology studies literature’s focus on the practical and pragmatic considerations that shape the generation, gathering and presenting of evidence (e.g., Swierstra & Rip, 2007), or provide a detailed examination of the ways in which PETA construct “tests of worth.”

Furthermore, we note that the article is limited in that it does not seek to critically appraise the various normative arguments associated with animal rights, and due to its focusing on PETA. As Peta was founded in the United States (by the British born Ingrid Newkirk), and as PETA has a distinct reputation for controversy, we recognize that our findings are shaped by cultural and organizational specifics that arguably encourage us to emphasize the importance of controversy and debate. A related limitation is that we have not sought to identify whether or not the mainstream of donors to animal rights organizations like PETA would agree with the alignment activities that we propose they are engaging in, or whether they would be deemed consistent with their identity (Rowley & Moldoveanu, 2003).

While the preceding limitations relate to the conceptual aims of our article being relatively broad, another set of limitations emerge when our conceptual aims are viewed as not broad enough. Most obviously, in primarily building upon French pragmatism, we have been constrained by this literature’s explicit focus on common worlds and economies of worth of Western origin. When this constraint is relaxed, it becomes clear that the sort of radical change that animal rights activists seek can also be brought about from within, or the aid of, other ontological traditions (e.g., Descola, 2013a, 2013b). Buddhist thought, for example, which aims at the realization of “non-self” through the eradication of desire, and which is difficult, but arguably not impossible, to conceive with Western conceptual tools (Whelan, 2012), suggests that our use of animals as means gets in the way of this (non-)objective. Suffice it to note that it is not clear how French pragmatists can easily accommodate such a foreign point of view given that all eight of the common worlds appear founded on a strong notion of individual selves. While other non-Western originating ways of thought present similar challenges, these challenges will often prove less extreme. Confucianism, for example, can be equated with the domestic common world outlined by French pragmatism (Whelan, 2007).