Welcome to Responsible Policies for Animals. I am sure you would not be here if you were not deeply concerned about animal abuse and its far-reaching consequences. We are not helpless in the face of overwhelming destruction of the living world and its quadrillions of animals. But radical new methods are needed. If you agree, I hope you will become an RPA member.
Since becoming a full-time animal advocate three decades ago after many years of teaching, I’ve changed my perception of civilization and its institutions, systems, and lifeways. I’ve reframed my thinking and my ways of advocating from learning that civilization is based on abuse of all living beings, including humans, with nonhuman animals enduring most of the suffering and animal abuse generating nearly all human misery.
Like most other familial and social animals, I am the most concerned for the wellbeing of my family members and close friends, and I act the most altruistically toward them. That does not mean I believe other human beings are less worthy of consideration or less entitled to a fulfilling life. I reflect on what policies would most benefit all human beings equally.
That does not mean I believe human beings are worthier of a fulfilling life than Earth’s quadrillions of other animals. Since animal abuse – all that civilization and human beings do to and with other animals and their natural homes – harms them all and causes nearly all human misery, I dedicate myself to promoting the policies that would do the most to eliminate animal abuse.
Once we grasp that civilization is based on animal abuse, that every benefit of civilization is at nonhuman animals’ expense, and that animal-abuse culture implicates all of us regardless of purchasing patterns or lifeways, we see that reducing animal abuse means promoting an entirely new paradigm of civilization—and that means radically revising policy. Plant the seed by sending all of your representatives and officials RPA’s free background paper “Governing for Life.”
We cannot reduce animal abuse or resulting human misery by fighting cruelty, being kind to animals, being caring consumers, or by any means that does not thoroughly change human beings’ beliefs about themselves, other animals, and the living world. Plant the seed by sending all of the teachers, administrators, and education students in your life RPA’s free white paper “Schooling for Life.”
Responsible Policies for Animals does not claim to have all the answers. But its innovative, comprehensive strategy accounts for the reasons standard animal and environmental advocacy perpetually fail despite building large organizations and garnering endless publicity. RPA’s unique campaigns are meticulously devised based on needed change, not popularity.
RPA might not be able to reverse our species’ millennia-long rampage over the living world and its animals. Time will tell, and you will help decide. If people who wish to reduce animal abuse do not adopt strategies for dousing the embers of global animal abuse through political and moral discourse and instead continue to occupy themselves with flare-ups at the margins, all will continue to worsen.
All best wishes,
David Cantor
Founder & Director
Responsible Policies for Animals