Heather Marshall from Edge Hill University and Michelle St. John from VinE join me on Sentientism episode 237. Find our Sentientism conversation on the Sentientism YouTube here and the Sentientism Podcast here.

Michelle St. John is the founder and director of VinE (Veganism in Education). VinE aims, through education, to encourage the development of empathy, critical thinking and ethical decision making. She has background in law, having worked as a Crown Prosecutor, a Magistrate and as guest lecturer on English Law at the Jagiellonian University, Krakow.

Heather Marshall is a Senior Lecturer and Religious Education PGCE Course Leader at  Edge Hill University . She is a specialist in #religiouseducation pedagogy but also has interests spanning diversity in learning environments, the impact of digital technologies on teaching, teacher identity formation, education policy, and effective assessment strategies. She is a VinE ambassador.

Sentientism answers those questions with “evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” In addition to the YouTube and Spotify above the audio is on our Podcast here on Apple & here on all the other platforms.

00:00 Clips

00:53 Welcome

03:00 Heather’s Intro

– Teaching kids, now teaching teachers and research

– Richard Twine episode

04:11 Michelle’s Intro

– Polish & English parents

– Social anthropology

– Law (barrister and magistrate), human rights and justice

– Vegan at 50 “that was the big change… human rights, animal rights, hand in hand”

– “Education was a key for change… because in my own education I hadn’t been given that opportunity to explore the moral status of animals”

– Marc Bekoff, Melanie Joy episodes

– Founding VinE “This is where we begin”

– Launching resources with Angela Hill from RE Today

– Ethical veganism as a worldview (featuring religious and non-religious ways in like #Sentientism)

– Spirited arts competition with the Animal Interfaith Alliance

– Partnering with The Vegan Organic Network @GrowingGreenVideos

07:53 What’s Real?

Heather

– Not brought up spiritual but a deep interest in religion and society

– “I’ve got quite a secular worldview… but I understand the importance of religion… the impact… why people might want to be involved in that”

– Critical thinking & questioning “I am quite scientific”

– As a social scientist “I do recognise that things are beyond the physical as well”

– Interested in psychology and how the brain works

– Not so concerned about the metaphysical e.g. “what happens after death”

– “That probably seems a bit weird for someone that teaches RE (Religious Education)… I’m interested in other people’s beliefs and why they might believe it… but I’m not that interested in exploring it for myself”

Michelle:

– “I’m still learning… I never shut a door… forever open”

– “I value good science but I approach that with the same caution as I would a religious dogma – neither are flawless”

– “I’ve concluded that I am mind, body and spirit”

– “I feel this profound interconnectedness with animals and nature”

– “There is something greater than ourselves… perhaps in line with Einstein or Spinoza’s god… harmonious sort of existence, not human affairs”

– Strict #RomanCatholic upbringing

– Family pets “but we never questioned the meat on our plate”

– Scientist father “never brought up with that conflict between science and religion. They just seemed to be working in different spheres.”

– “Both at home and at school we were never allowed to discuss other religions or beliefs… only one Catholic church… I think that was very wrong”

– “It should be up to the individuals to critically explore what’s out there… to get your own moral or spiritual compass”

– “I don’t think you dared [to explore beyond Catholicism]… I would have admired those that do… I should have… I most probably sensed something was wrong… Necessary, normal… Shame on me for listening to them”

– “I left school with no sense of really being a Catholic… just scary figures… no connection with God really or my own spirituality”

– “The sum of the whole was more than the individual parts… something about life that I couldn’t quite put my finger on”

– “The worst part about being brought up Catholic was this idea of dominion. And it was really lived. Animals are for our use, exploitation. That was taken for granted.”

– No space to consider animals in RE “But then science was just as bad, if not worse… speciesism… dissection… the classification of animals… animals [only] have instincts… If you take away a baby animal from a mother she’s not distressed, she’s just acting out of interest… only we have reason, only we have love or feelings or empathy… wrong, wrong, wrong”

– “Naturalism and supernaturalism are combined… I don’t see a problem with that… you don’t have to throw the babies out with the bathwater… there is value in each, there is truth in each”

– Carl Jung “He believed in the spirit. He considered it a psychological reality, not just a religious concept… spiritual interconnectedness… we’re all connected to something greater than ourselves”

– “There is acknowledgement within the social sciences of the reality, psychologically, of the spirit”

17:31 What and Who Matters?

Michelle:

– Tom Regan’s 3 ways into animal advocacy: Divincian (kids get it straight away “this is an animal – I’m not eating it”), Damascene conversion (something happens and “you get it”), Evidence and reason (Tom’s route thinking into things)

– Michelle’s Damascene moment at 50 years old “the most profound one of my life”

– Crying over rabbits killed on the road, looking after 7 rescue animals then “cook a meal with meat… never thought of anything”

– Making the connection between a dead rabbit and the chicken fillets in the fridge, then thinking “what the X am I doing?”

– “Maybe people have planted the seeds throughout my life… saying ‘you love animals and yet you eat them’”

– “I was such an emotional, empathetic person but there was this disconnect”

– “I was a sleeping seed that had suddenly woken up”

– “From that moment it was vegetarian… then when I learned about the horrors of the eggs and dairy… that was it… vegan… like the click of a light.”

– “There was some social push-back but the rewards have been so much greater… It’s the best thing I’ve ever done”

– Husband and several family members are now vegan “they joined the dots themselves”

– Non-vegan family members eating vegan out of compassion for Michelle when she vists

– “Compassion begets compassion… I started with humans… I’ve always been helping… I think I’m a rescuer”

– “Even the plants… that respect for life… that beauty… if you don’t have to harm it why harm anything?”

– Understanding the interconnections between human and non-human social justice “I focused on one, then I looked at the other, then I realised they’re two halves of the same whole”

– “Taking a holistic approach to the injustices of the world”

– Still working on human issue: Teaching peace education with the Quakers, joining marches in solidarity with Palestinians “I still do my work for humans… just the same as for animals… because we are all animals”

Heather:

– “I am quite a sensitive person… someone who gets upset about stuff quite easily”

– “I went from eating everything to being vegan… an overnight thing”

– Vegan older sister said “just do Veganuary… see how it goes”

– “There was literally no going back… I ate meat up until… 31^st December. 1^st January came and that was it. I never went back.”

– “I can’t tell you why that month made such a difference”

– Having rescue cats at home as a kid “I don’t think I ever reflected on it.“

– “I had a greater interest in people… wanting to protect… look after people… I wonder if animals just got a bit sidelined”

– “Cognitive dissonance was strong… I was very good at justifying why I had to eat meat”

– Being aware of why older sister was vegan, but thinking “She’s a bit weird… I’m not going to be like her… I wanted to be different.”

– Being in the middle between a fully emotional and a fully intellectual route to non-human animal ethics

– “It was the beginning of the month… being vegan 8 or 9 years ago wasn’t as easy as it is now… there was a realisation that actually, I could cause less suffering in the world”

– “Veganism is almost the easiest decision that you can make if you want to cause less suffering in the world… the best way of doing that”

– “My friends just accepted I was doing that [Veganuary]… because I never went back… it wasn’t too much of a shock for them”

– “The best, most empowering decision I’ve ever made… It’s empowered me in ways that I didn’t think that it could”

– “I know that I can live in a world where compassion reigns, where I do my best to not cause suffering. I’m not perfect… but I do my best to create a much more compassionate world… that’s really empowering to be able to make that decision.”

– “Being a mirror to those around me… I have conversations all the time”

– Talking to a 5 year old child of a friend about animal agriculture and veganism “’Why can’t you eat this?’”

–  “It fed into my academic career really nicely… being in RE… the stars aligned”

– “My sister’s much more overt… I’m much more passive aggressive 😊… I’ll do it through academia.”

– MSJ: Is there a danger that using the term sentience could be anthropocentric?

– JW: The danger that sentience becomes “how like me are you?” vs. something that decentres humans (because sentience is half a billion years older than humans and humans are a vanishingly tiny % of the sentients alive today)

– MSJ: What if there’s a creator or spiritual being who is sentient? Would Sentientism’s “evidence and reason” mean they can’t be discussed?

– JW: Anyone sentient matters, even if there’s a supernatural being. But if we have no evidence they exist, we probably don’t need to worry about them.

– JW: Evidence and reason should help defend sentient beings from those, like Descartes, who use supernatural thinking “animals have no souls” to claim they’re not sentient

– JW: “You can’t be a decent scientist who looks at the evidence and denies the sentience of Luna the puppy downstairs… I can put my hand up and say ‘here is the evidence that I am a feeling being so I demand respect and rights and compassion.’”

– HW: The worry that people claim only humans can reason and that animals can’t

– JW: “The compassion [under Sentientism] is for the sentient beings and their sentience. Their rationality [or otherwise] is totally irrelevant under Sentientism.”

– JW: “Which is why a human infant matters even if they’re not particularly rational. Which is why Luna the puppy… I don’t care whether Luna is rational. She is sentient. That’s what matters.”

– MSJ: “I didn’t need the Cambridge Declaration to know that all of my animals are sentient, loving, empathetic beings.” And the concern that “unless it’s scientifically proven” it’s ignored

– MSJ: “And what does sentience mean when we have an Act in law that recognises animal sentience – but what does it achieve?… That moral standing has to be acted out in reality”

– MSJ: “The evidence that plant-based diets are better for animals, humans and the planet… compassion for all beings, you don’t hurt animals… Shouldn’t the default position of every Sentientist be vegan?”

– JW: “Yes, absolutely”

– JW: “There’s a danger we think too narrowly about a scientific worldview… randomised controlled trials, people in white lab coats – that is science”

– JW: “Our life experiences… our senses… looking into the eyes of a puppy – those are types of evidence too… and it has to have open-mindedness and humility at its heart”

– JW: “I totally agree… there’s no point of having a moral stance or expressing compassion if you don’t put that into practice… The dark heart of the problem we’re facing is that most humans say they care but we and our systems don’t act that way.”

– JW: “Because veganism is a practical philosophical stance against the exploitation, commodification, harming, killing of sentient non-human animals it’s an obvious, 100% locked in implication of having a Sentientist worldview.”

– MSJ: “It would be wonderful if Sentientism did have a moral baseline… for belief and action to be combined… in the real world… [not] just a theoretical exercise”

– JW: “Setting a practical moral baseline is so important. It’s so easy for our human minds to say things we want to say to feel good but not to actually carry that through into action.”

– JW: “The way I frame that in Sentientism today… is to be clear about what we mean by a minimal requirement of having compassion for someone… non-maleficence… not exploiting, harming or killing someone without a really strong overriding justification… which echoes what’s already in veganism… practicable and possible… there are always edge cases”

– JW: “That non-maleficence is a minimal moral baseline which in the field of human exploitation of animals is veganism… then hopefully we go beyond that… to benevolence, helping, supporting”

– JW: “It has that negative stance of avoiding… leads into the vegan boycott… but compassion also has this broader concept of helping and benevolence”

50:02 A Better World?

Heather:

– “The education space is problematic because it’s so political… a hot potato”

– “We make small gains and then we have a change of government… It’s just not a stable enough space to really implement the change that I perhaps felt I could when I first trained to be a teacher”

– “’I want to change the world!’ brilliant – but they realise by December, January, February that a lot of it is marking, it’s meetings, is firefighting”

– “It’s easy to think that education is a space where the world can change and I do believe it can… certain spaces… RE, PSHE (personal, social, health and economic education), Citizenship – those subjects that are more non-statutory and more to do with the development of the person… spaces to introduce conversations around animals, animal welfare, Sentientism…”

– “I’ve had to learn to really manage my expectations about how change can happen”

– “When I started out on my doctorate my hypothesis was that these young vegans were really changing the worlds that they lived in”

– “As I got through my research what I realised is that they had very little opportunity to do that… they come up against the hidden curriculum… schools that aren’t willing to meet their dietary preferences… prejudice not just from peers but from teachers”

– “My focus of my dissertation changed… to narrating their experiences rather than seeing them as change makers”

– “They will be change makers, they will influence their peers”

– “Teachers are tied by the curriculum… GCSE specification / A-level [exams] specifications… it’s a meritocracy… while education is a meritocracy there’s limited hope for change”

– “We can still have conversations… a great teacher [in Toxteth, Liverpool, UK]… she’s done a philosophy club… veganism… worldviews…”

– “Education has pockets of opportunity… what’s inspired me about Michelle and yourself… we are looking at those opportunities and seizing them and thinking ‘where can we make a difference?’”

– “We’re not going to be able to fight the dairy industry in terms of offering milk in the canteen… but what we can do is have those conversations around why milk might not be the best thing to be drinking”

– “I have also experienced parental pressure… schools scared of parents… of the community… they are there to serve their community… Schools sometimes can be quite conservative”

–  “It’s not as bleak as all that… It’s the realism of education… It’s a great space.”

– “The independent sector… there’s more opportunity. They have the time and the resources to do critical thinking much better”

– Building veganism infused in to the whole of a school, not just in one subject or the canteen”

–  Citizenship, PSHE and RE as interesting touch points

Heather:

– How RE has changed “We pretty much just taught the six major religions… then we introduced much more philosophy and ethics… animal testing, abortion, afterlife… to explore them with a much more philosophical lens [rather than just listing religious places / books / rituals /  beliefs]”

– “The previous government took out philosophy and ethics… so we lost that… but what the RE world has, in response to that, is brought in a worldviews agenda”

– The Nobody Stands Nowhere video. “We all have a way of viewing the world and RE is a way of us understanding our own worldview, but also that worldview isn’t just religion. It could be Sentientism or Veganism. It could be all sorts of different things.”

– “Wales has very much taken it on… The [rest of] the UK and Scotland have been a bit slower”

– The movement within modern RE focused on empowering kids… critical thinking, understanding of other worldviews, confidence to examine and even change their own

– “Confessional RE… to make children Christian… we’ve left that quite far beyond now”

– “Even some of the Catholic and Church of England schools that I will go into are taking on this idea of worldviews”

– “That’s why RE is a good place to be discussing Sentientism, Veganism… that’s something I will probably keep banging on about”

Michelle:

–  “Veganism, as defined in 1944 by Donald Watson, was and is a strictly secular belief… founded on the science of its day… he didn’t want it to have a religious connotation… a hippie kind of… he wanted it to be founded on the science of the day”

– “It’s roots are ancient… both in religious and non-religious worldviews… ahimsa… Plato.”

– “It’s a new term… but it brings together everybody… it doesn’t matter if you have a faith or no faith if your destination is the same… compassion… then that is all that matters”

– Different routes to veganism “interpretation of their holy texts… their reason isn’t the vegan society… it’s their belief”

– “You’ll always get the people who will justify atrocities by saying ‘it’s written down that we can dominate’”

– “Virtually every tenet of every world religion is based on compassion”

– “When the basic faith becomes contaminated by human beings… Aquinas… animals don’t have souls… dominion meant domination”

– “We have to look for compassion… bring those together who feel that way”

– “There’s the Catholic Vegan Society… the Muslim Vegan Society… Jains that are vegan… a choice that is open to them”

– “The ultimate end goal of most religions is living in peace together, compassionately”

– Do parents worry that kids will change or reject their religion because of RE classes? Or worry about them wanting to go vegan?

– Kids today are already aware of veganism “They’re most probably more clued up than their teachers or parents”

– “There’s a lot of misconceptions… mainly because of the media… fear of change”

– ProVeg and Plant Based Schools’ work on helping schools make their catering more plant based

– UK schools (Our Lady of Sion) and a nursery that have gone fully plant based “most of these are independent schools because governments put a block on what can and can’t be served”

– “I’m hopeful for the future”

– Working with Jigsaw, NATRE, RE Today and other RE content developers about Veganism and Sentientism

– “Other organisations are interested… that helps to give it credence”

– JW: Being invited to a Church of England Diocese RE Teacher conference to talk about Sentientism, but two other sessions talked about non-human animal ethics too “It wasn’t just ‘tag a vegan on the end’”

– JW: Feeling conflicted about a CEFAW schools project that genuinely helped young kids to develop compassion for non-human farmed chickens “they need companionship and dust baths and water and food”, yet completely avoided mentioning their exploitation or slaughter “Because of this sensitivity… not wanting to freak the kids out… There was no mention of what happens to the male chicks… slaughter processes… genetic modification… that makes it very hard for them to lead good lives even if they were allowed out”

– JW: “Children are normalised into animal product consumption. Regardless of the horrors that go on in the slaughterhouse it’s just default to put the products of those slaughterhouses in front of kids, tell them it’s tasty and delicious and normal…”

– JW: “How do you talk about this with younger children?… How much can we expose to them about the reality?”

Michelle:

– “You have to be compassionate in your teaching… for primary school it’s not necessary at that point [to show the horror]… engaging empathy, appreciating that animals are sentient beings with their own lives, is a good start”

– “It’s awful because teachers, 90% of the time, they’re saying eating meat is natural, normal and necessary…”

– “Engaging in stories… children appreciating their sentience… and the alternatives [to animal exploitation]”

– “There are about 118 school farms… children, even primary, are raising animals for slaughter… sometimes they’re allowed to name them, sometimes not…”

– 4-H farm programmes in the USA

– Children say “it’s really mean that the pigs are killed, but what can we do? I like sausages.”

–  “Actually, there’s an alternative to a meat sausage”

– “Those lessons need to be conducted pluralistically too… teaching veganism – objective, pluralistic… a carnist agenda, that should be pluralistic”

– “The RSPCA, in their ‘compassionate’ education, they promote only animal welfare and meat-eating. They don’t promote veganism.”

– “I wouldn’t want to traumatise a child too early… that time will come”

– “Once they’ve understood animals and their sentience and a way of viewing them as our equal… that’s the bedrock… the seeds you sow… when they’re age relevant to introduce those topics it will be even more powerful because they’ve connected with nature, they’ve connected with the animal”

Heather:

– “It’s a tightrope… There’s quite a lot of controversial issues that are discussed in RE. It comes down to knowing your pupils and knowing your community… develop those relationships… you can have a lot more honest conversations… it really needs that nuance”

– “As a teacher… you’re mastered by a number of different puppeteers… that’s really difficult”

– Secondary teachers… “They can say that ‘I don’t think that slaughtering an animal is right and these are my reasons… we can explore that’”

– “Giving them alternative voices… that’s what RE is really good at… let’s look at what happens to these animals… why might a vegan have an issue with that”

– “Ask me questions, be open, be honest”

Michelle:

– “I think the empathy is already in there… What you’re trying to do is be one of the blockers so that it’s not socialised or educated out of them.”

– The Spirited Arts animal competition “they already have that ethical heart… there is already that compassion… that sense of social justice… we have a lot to learn from them… not a one way street”

– JW: “You feel they have that innate, deep felt compassion… Ending the bad aspects of education… is almost as important as doing good education… you just need to free kids to express their own values in the world”

– “When I was a kid I wouldn’t d

are challenge the school… But there was one school farm… the students did a survey of whether or not the pigs should be killed… 89% said ‘no they shouldn’t be… these are our friends – this a betrayal of trust’… the school was shocked”

– JW: “Removing the constraints to allow the kids to be who they already want to be… The constraints you felt about being brought up Catholic… Arguably the constraints we all feel about being brought up in a carnist, speciesist world are even stronger… even more consistently applied… If we can free kids’ minds from those constraints, wonderful things could happen”

– “It’s your social and cultural identity quite often… it’s not just changing an ingredient”

– Heather’s blog prompted by the Netflix series Adolescence

Heather:

– “The intersectionality is quite huge… issues about women and how we view women… certainly within the dairy industry… how do we view the female of the species… we don’t view our females in a much different way in a sense”

– “Veganism unlocks a lot”

– “Vegans I’ve met are generally… on the right side of history in terms of their opinions about other things… it just allows you to step back and think ‘what’s the most compassionate response here… who are the vulnerable?… who are being exploited?… why are we exploiting them?… why do we think that’s acceptable?”

– “It just opens up that can of worms… it can be quite difficult to get those worms back in… ‘I hadn’t thought about that…’”

– “It’s a path to compassion that can be really, really useful”

– JW: “If you’re against one form of oppression why not be against them all?”

– “I do find that quite frustrating… vegans almost have to stand for everything… [people say] ‘Oh the vegans… they’re dealing with that’… it would be good to share this with some of the other human spaces in the world”

– How other social justice causes rightly expect vegans to join in but won’t add veganism to their list of causes

– JW: “However you choose to focus, that’s not an excuse for perpetuating an oppression against any oppressed group… you wouldn’t say ‘I’m focusing on countering sexism which is why it’s OK for me to be racist’… that makes no sense… We should be able to demand the same thing… you don’t have to be a full time vegan activist, you can work on human rights, but you shouldn’t be perpetuating oppression at least, as a baseline”

Michelle:

– Tolstoy’s “While there are slaughterhouses there will be battlefields”… “We need to extend our compassion… it’s better for everybody… it’s a win-win for humans and the animals”

– The need for individual and systemic change in the face of political resistance and entrenched financial interests “How do we work on the economic and political structures?”

– JW: “We need vegan political systems and social systems and cultural norms… not just vegan individuals… they go together”

01:28:03 Follow Heather and Michelle:

– VinE

– VinE on Insta

– VinE on LinkedIn

– Heather at Edge Hill

Thanks to Graham for the post-production and to Tarabella, Steven, Roy and Denise for helping to fund this episode via our Sentientism Patreon and our Ko-Fi page. You can do the same or help by picking out some Sentientism merch on Redbubble or buying our guests’ books at the Sentientism Bookshop. Sentientism is proud to now be part of the iRoar podcast network – go check out some of the other wonderful podcasts there.