Circles of Compassion: Essays Connecting Issues of Justice

by Will Tuttle (Editor)

What is the link between compassion for animals, social justice, and harmony in our human world? This book consists of a series of essays by internationally recognized authors and activists. These insightful and inspiring essays focus on how the seemingly disparate issues of human, animal, and environmental rights are indeed connected.

Illuminating the connections between injustice to animals and the various forms of social and ecological injustice, these thirty authors provide essential keys to effectively addressing the hidden roots of our dilemmas.

The essays also provide practical guidance about how to make the individual, systemic, and social changes necessary to effectively create a peaceful and just world for all. This landmark book provides a crucial impetus for us to break through our confining delusions, build bridges of understanding, and awaken from the cultural trance of indifference and inequity.

Genres: Nonfiction, Vegan, Animals

319 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2014

About the author

Dr. Will Tuttle, author of The World Peace Diet, is a pianist, composer, educator, and recipient of the Courage of Conscience Award. A former Zen monk, his Ph.D. from U.C. Berkeley focused on educating intuition and altruism. He presents ongoing events promoting peace through compassion for all life.

Reviews

[Corvus · Rating 1 out of 5]

There's some fuckery going on with gr letting me edit this with all the previous review, but please stop recommending Tuttle. He's proven himself to consistently be a reactionary, antivax, transphobic, ableist garbage can. He can use the word peace all he wants but he ain't for it.

Trying the this paste one last time...
Edit 2: in case you were wondering whether or not woo tuttle has learned anything or if he has become further rotting garbage, he'snow posting transphobic shit. STOP RECOMMENDING mediocre vegan books by a less than mediocre reactionary.


Edit 1: I am lowering my rating of this book mostly to call attention to Will's behavior online and on his email list lately (not my page in the links, but lots of valuable comments and screenshots from folks there.) He's sending out some serious and dangerous misinformation coupled with offensive white hippie platitudes and the idea that veganism is a miracle cure of some sort. Also, I have never said this publicly, but this dude said he was surprised a vegan could get cancer when he heard I had cancer through the grapevine. I had been vegan like 11 years at the time or something. I have had a recurrence, too (I am ok right now, don't worry) and have been (a mostly healthy eating) vegan around 15 years. Disabled and chronically ill (not because of veganism, don't even try it) vegans exist in much larger numbers than these people realize. I have friends in this book and really respect some of the other contributors, but I don't want my review to end up supporting anything from Tuttle right now. Why is it that when women make up most of the humans in these movements for other animals that we still lift up mediocre men the most? Here's the latest coronavirus stats about what is happening while he is writing this crap if you're interested.

[Peacegal · Rating 3 out of 5]

CIRCLES OF COMPASSION is an essay collection with the theme of making connections between social movements, particularly those within human rights, the environment, and animal protection. It makes sense that there needs to be more “compassion crossover.” Many people deeply sensitized to the plight of people or the environment ignore and even defend the terrible treatment of animals; and there exists a misanthropic streak within animal advocacy which results in some “humane” people saying some truly cold and offensive things about innocent human victims.

In both of these situations, we have thinking people shutting down their caring natures—and we need more caring in this world, not less.

As with any collection of essays, the result is a mixed bag. Some of them just didn’t click with me, and others I found enjoyable and insightful. My favorite essay was the one by Rita Laws, in which she addresses common misunderstandings and stereotypes about Native Americans.

The image of the American Indian as mighty hunter, subsisting almost entirely on bison and other large wildlife, is so ingrained in our culture. But tribal customs were as different and varied as the cultures of different nations, with many tribes relying just as much on gathering and growing as hunting and fishing—we just don’t think much about that because it isn’t as romantic to our American psyche.

Writes Laws, The native peoples of the Americas have been described as the greatest farmers in the history of the planet. Nearly half of the plant foods grown worldwide today were cultivated first by New World Indians, including sweet and white potatoes, many kinds of beans, nuts, berries, and fruits. Three of the most popular flavors in the world, chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry, are all gifts from America’s first farmers.

Yet how much more deficient would our cuisines be without these, and many more, plant foods? (And anyway, how ridiculous that the subsistence hunting of native peoples would be used to excuse the industrial hideousness that is the modern factory farm, yet this is an argument many “progressive” individuals continue to espouse.)

As I’ve written before, and as highlighted by some of the essayists in this book, neither the left nor the right has the upper hand when it comes to sensitivity to animal welfare. At the same time, this isn’t surprising. The vast majority of us follow the dominant culture in regards to things both trivial and deadly serious. And as writer Will Tuttle notes, All the primary institutions in our culture (religion, science, media, family, government, business, and education) cooperate to keep our catastrophic abuse of animals well hidden, ignored, trivialized, and accepted.

So it’s not surprising that even people whose eyes are open to some issues may be willfully blind to others—and the same goes for animal-aware people too. That’s why I wish books such as this focused more on changing systems rather than changing individuals. If the way things are manufactured and done changes, then the individuals change.

[Ireene · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this book! It´s different from other vegan and animal rights books. If you think you know it all or have heard it all, you couldn´t be more wrong. There is lots of new information, lots of new aspects, new dots to connect. I am so grateful to all the authors who contributed to this book. This book definitely helps me become more compassionate person, and even more compassionate vegan.

I think this paragraph beautifully sums up the message of this book: "Somewhere along the way, we must learn that there is nothing greater than to do something for others. And this is the way I've decided to go the rest of my days. And don't forget in doing something for others that you have what you have because of others. Don't forget that. We are tied together in life and in the world." Martin Luther King, Jr.

[Keith Akers · Rating 4 out of 5]

What is the relationship between veganism and other social justice issues? Obviously factory farms and other forms of animal exploitation are tremendously unjust. But what’s the relationship between, say, animal liberation and other social justice movements?

Anyone interested in this question could hardly do better than look at the recent anthology of essays on this very topic, Circles of Compassion, edited by Will Tuttle (The World Peace Diet: Eating for Spiritual Health and Social Harmony). Dawn Moncrief brought this book to my attention at the recent Vegetarian Summerfest in Johnstown during one of her presentations on world hunger. I picked up a copy and have not regretted it a moment since. Dawn’s own essay in this book, by the way, is really the best presentation of the world hunger issue I have seen.

You can order it from: http://veganpublishers.com/multimedia...

There are several things that stand out about Circles of Compassion. These writers are real activists who are literally on the front lines of the struggle. You get the sense that you are listening in to personal accounts of what is going on in the movement, right now. Many of the contributors brought in their own personal experience with injustice — in several cases I was really amazed that people would talk publicly about the kinds of things that they have experienced in their own lives. But obviously, it seems to be necessary to do this.

There is a striking variety of viewpoints represented here. Vegan ideas on social justice cover a variety of issues such as feminism, war, slavery, racism, climate change, and world hunger. All of the contributors are vegans, but they come at it from numerous different angles. Some of them are well-known in their own right already; names like Carol Adams, Colleen Patrick-Goudreau, Melanie Joy, Richard Schwartz, Jo Stepaniak, and Will Tuttle (the editor) all appear. Others are less well-known; still others I am finding out about for the first time myself. Finally, there aren’t any bad essays in this collection, and it is well edited, avoiding many of the problems (such as typos or non-helpful footnotes) that one often sees in small-run books.

There are two basic approaches taken. The first is the argument that animal liberation is a social justice issue. Logically and emotionally, if you are for social justice issue X (fill in the blank), then you should also be for animal liberation. Don’t think that slavery is a good idea? Well, livestock agriculture makes slaves of animals.

The other angle (which is also represented) is to say that if you are for social justice issue X, you cannot achieve your goals — even just for humans — unless you are also for veganism. You can’t deal with climate change or world hunger, for example, without advocating for veganism. We need both approaches, because different people can be approached in different ways.

The one social justice issue which perhaps wasn’t as well represented as it might have been (though several contributors were clearly sympathetic) was the “class struggle” perspective typically advocated by Marxists. Doesn’t promoting economic equality require animal liberation? Perhaps that’s because Marxism, or anything that smacks of Marxism, has fallen out of favor these days. It’s too bad, because in many cases social issues don’t have traction until they become economic issues. It’s not entirely a coincidence that the first great surge of interest in vegetarianism and veganism in the 1970's coincided with rising food prices. Remember the “meat boycott”? Some of us have been boycotting meat ever since.

Historically, social justice movements sometimes work together, but sometimes find themselves in opposition. We think of the 19th century feminists and racial equality movements, which were at different times and in different forms either allied with each other or in competition with each other. Vegans need to establish themselves as bona fide social activists, and this book certainly makes a strong case for that idea. For anyone interested in the relationship between veganism and social justice issues — or anyone interested in vegan activism at all — this book is practically indispensable.

[moonglow · Rating 5 out of 5]

Circles of Compassion is a collection of 29 essays, each by a different author. I heard about and decided to read this book because my very dear friend wrote one of the essays.

All of the essays share a common theme: the way we treat animals (especially those we use for food, material, and testing) is connected to the way we treat other human beings and the environment. In the US (and other nations are quickly following suit), we feed animals to make them fatter faster, we drug them, we control their reproductive cycles, we confine them in indoor cells or sheds and limit their natural physical activity. Similarly, people are getting fatter, sicker, more drugged, increasingly more indoors and less active, and some of our leaders are trying to control some aspects of women's reproduction.

The patterns of exploitation of animals (the most defenseless and vulnerable beings) are no different than the patterns of exploitation of vulnerable groups of humans - women, children, the LGBTQ community, and other groups that are deemed "weak" or "weird" - by those who hold power. This reminds me of a quote by Tolstoy: "As long as there are slaughterhouses, there will be battlefields."

At the same time, the livestock industry is wreaking havoc on the environment. Animal agriculture is the leading cause of species extinction, ocean dead zones, water pollution, and habitat destruction. Here are just a few examples:
* Scientists estimate livestock produce 18 to 51% (depending on the analysis) of greenhouse gases
* Animal agriculture (livestock and feedcrops)are responsible for 91% of the destruction of the Amazon rainforest.
* Growing feedcrops for livestock consumes about 50% of the water in the US.
* About 3/4 of the world's fisheries are exploited, and scientists estimate that we could see fishless oceans by 2050.
Can you imagine a world without rainforests and without fish in the oceans? What kind of world are we going to leave our children and grandchildren?

The essays in this book do a fine job of exploring the connections between animals, humans, and the Earth. But the content is not just bad news about how people suck and destroy everything around them. Much more than that, it offers inspiration, hope, and solutions.

[Dani · Rating 5 out of 5]

So great. so much underlining..

"It is human action, intention, and lack of necessity that solidify these tragedies as injustice...It is the choice to participate in systems that inflict unnecessary harm that constitutes violence and injustice."

"Whereas women may feel like pieces of meat, and be treated like pieces of meat-emotionally butchered and physically battered- animals actually are made into pieces of meat."

Page 222- "Compassion for all life must filter through our thought process and our relationship to other beings..the suffering of any being anywhere on the planet diminishes us all.."

Page 225- "After I went away to college, my latent feminist tendencies developed and flourished like thirsty seedlings that had finally gotten some water: in this case, the water was books, friends, conversations."

[Valter Liblik · Rating 4 out of 5]

At first I wasn't impressed with this book, but the more I kept reading the more I started liking it and even appreciating the tales of the few people I didn't like. I do not agree with everything written in this book, but most of the essays written in it are really interesting and make you think about various issues. I think that's probably the strength of this book, that the essays are just so different and each of them pulls you in, in its own way.

[Srikanth · Rating 5 out of 5]

An eclectic collection of essays by over 29 authors all circling around the concepts of compassion, animal rights, climate change, speciesism, human rights and others. Each author tries to attack these issues in their own way with some more convincing than the others. Overall, a good read for someone interested in these concepts and is willing to make lifestyle changes for the greater good.

[Wendy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall, this is a fantastic book. The essays are written to show the importance and necessity of intersectional activism, and in particular, why animal rights or liberation should not be excluded from other forms of social justice work: racism, abelism, feminism, and LGBTQ rights, environmentalism, capitalism, spirituality/religion. We are shown how the same system that allows for human slavery is the same as that which allows for animal exploitation.

I did have a couple problems with this book. The first is the structure. The essays are arranged alphabetically by the author's last name, but because not all these authors are predominantly writers, or the experiences vary so widely, the outcome is a couple of rather vague, somewhat confusing (please use citations!) essays, followed by a few more that are outstanding, and so on. I think this could have been better arranged by subject (ie, a general overview of connections between oppressions leading to essays about very specific issues) and possibly length or type - is this one academic, is this personal, is this a transcript of a speech?

The bigger and biggest problem I have with this book, though, is that 99% of the essays talked about veganism or animal rights as who we eat and what we do to animals who become food. Of course, when talking about animal rights you cannot leave out food production, and several of the authors, like lauren Ornelas and Robert Oppenlander work specifically on food and farm animal issues, so that makes sense. Some of the authors talk about animal rights in general without necessarily defining it, and only a few briefly mention other issues such as vivisection, hunting, rodeos, zoos, other forms of "entertainment," fur, leather, breeding mills, and other wildlife issues. [One essay, by Jo Stepaniak, is very hard to understand. Written about the importance of compassion, I got the idea that she was rather smacking down vegans who don't practice compassion towards others, but it is very vague and difficult to figure out who her audience is intended to be.] This leads to the question of who the intended audience is for the book: is it animal activists who ignore other issues of oppression, failing to recognize the connections; or is it other activists who fail to include other animals in their work simply because species is a barrier it's so hard for people to look past? Essays fall into both categories, but I feel the book could have been stronger with a little more clarity of audience.

Nevertheless, this is an important book and an overall good start into the world of intersectional activism from an animal rights standpoint.

[Martin Rowe · Rating 4 out of 5]

First, a disclaimer: I've been writing, thinking, and publishing books on these topics for over twenty years. I've published several of the authors in this anthology, including the editor, and in its early iterations there was some suggestion that my company, Lantern Books, might publish the anthology. All in all, I found CIRCLES OF COMPASSION a very useful summation and exploration of intersectionality. As is the nature of anthologies, some articles were more compelling and more tightly argued than others; some read like a list of accomplishments or a presentation of data; a few had way too much "I" for my liking. But many pieces were genuinely eye-opening, and the central argument that veganism and animal rights cannot and should not be single-issue concerns was made loud and clear.

The AR and vegan movements are often (self-)perceived as white, middle-class indulgences, a perception that both limits the movement's growth and paradoxically fails to take into account the numerous food-justice communities of color and their varied regional and class identifications that are working diligently intersectionally beyond the purview of those who complain about the limitations of the AR and vegan movements! Just because you don't show up at a conference or appear in an anthology doesn't mean to say you don't exist or your work is not making a difference. It's not only "the movement" that needs to change; we need to change what we consider "the movement." Certainly, this anthology and others like it (such as SISTAH VEGAN, which I published) are showing that "we" (whoever THAT is!) are more diverse and more multidimensional than "we" thought. Now "we" just need to work out who "we" are.

[E.D.E. Bell · Rating 4 out of 5]

I acquired this compilation of essays at one of Dr. Tuttle’s events. While academic in parts and sometimes uneven, there were several stories to which I really connected. You'll note that as the essays are compiled alphabetically (rather than weaving a theme) many of these are in the middle or second half of the book. The ones I connected to the most including compositions by:

Christopher-Sebastian McJetters, whose plain speech and straightforward ideas I found appealing.

David Nibert, whom I had the honor of talking to at a potluck once and whose ideas have really stuck with me.

Anthony J. Nocella II, whose essay was provocative and questioned vegan assumptions.

lauren Ornelas, with her vivid and effective descriptions and connections.

Colleen Patrick-Goudreau, with relatable experiences and a permeating positivity to her writing.

Marla Rose, with such a simple and powerful analogy.

And Zoe Weil, with practical intersectional suggestions and thoughts.

Interesting ideas - a nice collection. Worthwhile for anyone interested in thinking further about intersectional compassion themes.

[Wis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Definitely one of the best books on social justice. It hurts to go through all the horrors inflicted on our animals and our environment in each essay. However, it's heartening to see how many people are changing the world out there. I feel so overwhelmed by these authors, true and compassionate beings speaking up for us and showing the connection between human, animal, and environmental rights.

[Ray · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent! Highly recommended! Climate Change is a symptom of a corporate and social culture that treats human and non-human animals as well as our environment as commodities to be exploited for profit and power. We see that many issues of social justice are interconnected in the web of life. The ultimate sign of domination may be to consume the creature you dominate.

[LInda L · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is heartbreaking -- I cried over a lot of the essays, and felt like a terrible person because I eat meat. I will admit that I cringe whenever I see one of those trucks full of chickens heading for the chicken plant, but I still eat it. The only thing I've given up is veal and that was easy because I don't like it. Anyway, if you're a humane person -- read this.

[Jenni James · Rating 5 out of 5]

This series of essays is confronting, honest and quite wonderful. The messages are powerful. If this world of ours is to survive each and everyone of us must become part of the solution. As Dr King once said so eloquently, "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere".