Manny Rutinel, discusses how activists involved in the Animal Movement can avoid burnout at the 2024 Animal Legal Defense Fund Student Convention.

Transcription:

And my question for you is sort of an offshoot of the previous great question that we had. How about within the movement? How do you inspire people who acknowledge and want to work towards protecting animals, but maybe they experience a minor set back or something and they get discouraged? And where do you continue to draw your inspiration from?Great question. I think the tendency towards burnout or fatalistic thinking in the movement stems from, I'd say two things. One is an unrealistic optimism. There's this like God, everything is going horrible. You know, it should have been fixed by now. There's this, like, I think we have timelines that are really short in our minds around what a movement should be able to do, especially when there's such clear injustices happening. We sort of have an expectation around the moral arc of the universe bending in ways that we think are are much faster. I think maybe we should expand our timelines for when our movements will be able to reach certain milestones, and we should see ourselves as part of the beginning. Portions of a movement that's going to be lasting for many, many, many, many decades, and potentially in the entire century from now. And dedicate our lives in that way.

I think the other piece of this is that we have a tendency to look at outcomes as opposed to seeing ourselves working with a process. So if, if I can recommend one book on this topic, it's a Guide to the Good Life by William Irvine. And it's, it's about stoicism, but it, it really touches on how we should be focusing more on the process as opposed to the outcome of our actions and how that is sort of a key to living in a much more. Sustainable, happy way. And I think this ties into this point that I've been making around counterfactual impact. You know, I think one of the most powerful positions that you can have for the animal movement is working as the CEO of Tyson. If you were the CEO of Tyson, the world would be a much, much, much better place. Even though you as the CEO, people can point to you and say that you are responsible for billions of animals being tortured. But presumably if you were in that role you'd be able to shift things towards a better direction. So even though the outcome is bad. Because you engaged in the process, that outcome is less bad than it otherwise would be. And so think of yourself as taking shots on goal, engaging in the work, and focusing on how is the world different because I'm in it and how am I contributing to the world as opposed to just looking at the outcome because often the outcome is going to be really negative. Yeah.