Three Things the Humane Party Is Not

The Clarity of Repulsion

Some years ago, I helped develop a playful, quirky, non-scholarly personality test based on a certain piece of fantasy literature. One interesting trend that test-takers anecdotally noticed was that what people did NOT like tended to be felt more clearly than what they did like. 

For instance, test-takers would strain themselves for minutes at a time trying to choose between most-desirable-trait words (e.g., courage, loyalty) but could determine without hesitation which traits repulsed them the most (e.g., cowards, traitors). 

Perhaps being especially clear about our dislikes has a survival value from an evolutionary perspective: it’s fine to constantly change our minds about whether Chinese food or Indian food is our favorite, and we don’t have to commit exclusively to one or the other; we can have each of our favorite foods at different times. But it’s NOT okay to be wishy-washy about whether we want to eat poisonous food. Our ancestors who didn’t clearly feel a desire to avoid poisonous food probably got weeded out of the gene pool rather quickly.

In this vein, here are three things that the Humane Party is not or does not do.

We do not legitimize, appease, or collaborate with slaveholders.

Collaborationism has a long history. Possibly the most famous example from the 20th Century is that of the Vichy government in France during the Second World War. Rather than joining the Resistance, members of the Vichy government collaborated with the Nazi regime. After the war, such collaborators were publicly shamed.

Unlike the Vichy government, the Humane Party does not collaborate with slaveholders. We will never help the animal-killing “industries” humane-wash themselves, nor help them in any other way, nor regard them as legitimate businesses at all. Rather, the Humane Party will resist these entities and practices until they are abolished altogether, just as the French Resistance fought until the Nazis were totally and unequivocally defeated.

We do not beg, plead, lobby, or petition people to behave ethically.

Many well-meaning vegans and animal-rights organizations politely ask Democrat-Republican officials to stop kidnapping, raping, torturing, mutilating, and killing animals. These requests can be made through in-person lobbying, through letter-writing campaigns, through online petitions, and through other permission-based approaches. Unfortunately, these well-intended efforts ultimately leave the power in the hands of the person whose permission, favor, or blessing is sought.

The Humane Party, by contrast, takes a replace-not-request approach: rather than request that a given official change his or her personal and political acts, we seek to simply replace that official. No permission or favor is sought.

We are neither “conservative” nor “liberal,” neither “left” nor “right,” neither “woke” nor “un-woke,” neither “politically correct” nor “politically incorrect.”

Manufactured dichotomies represent the essential worldview of many political philosophers, pundits, politicians, professors, and parties. Such dichotomies are used to whip crowds into an “us-vs-them” frenzy. George Orwell brilliantly satirized this type of thinking in his “Hate Week” creation (among many other instances) in 1984. Today, the U.S.’s leading populists focus almost exclusively on this type of “otherist” appeal.

But the Humane Party bases its positions strictly on science and ethics, regardless of where these positions might fall on a manufactured dichotomy. Choosing not to rape and kill animals, for instance, is not a “rightist” or “leftist” idea; it’s neither “conservative” nor “liberal.” This choice transcends any manufactured dichotomy and can be made by anyone anywhere, regardless of how an individual perceives such dichotomies.

Looking Ahead

Sometimes it’s helpful to frame things in terms of what one does not agree with. Many people can readily recognize, for instance, that they are viscerally repulsed by the Vichy government’s collaboration with the Nazis during the Second World War, and this clarity is informative. If you can relate to the above list of things the Humane Party is not, please feel free to get in touch.

Vive la Résistance!

~ Shelley Harrison