My new book, A Rat is a Pig is a Dog is a Boy: The Human Cost of the Animal Rights Movement is at the printer and will be available in early February (with a good discount at Amazon), a few weeks later than expected, but what else is new in publishing? This is the final cover.
I admit to being pretty jazzed. This is my 12th book and it never gets old. More importantly, I hope A Rat is a Pig, etc. adds substantially to the debate and particularly helps clarify the crucial difference between animal rights and animal welfare, as it focuses us on the importance of human exceptionalism.
Special thanks to the novelist Dean Koontz for his splendid preface. Here’s an excerpt:
Like every antidemocratic ideology, this one [animal rights] is by definition antihuman, and like any antihuman ideology, it ultimately deteriorates into a nihilistic bitterness that is anti-life. . . . Wesley J. Smith knows too well that if the activists ever succeeded in their goals, if they established through culture or law that human beings have no intrinsic dignity greater than that of any animal, the world would not be a better place for either humankind or animals.
Here are some other endorsements:
Clearly written and authoritatively referenced, Smith’s book is a real eye-opener. The book exposes animal extremism for what it really is: a threat to both animal and human well-being. Long on fact and logic, A Rat Is a Pig Is a Dog Is a Boy will frustrate those animal rightists who use fallacious logic and erroneous ‘facts’ to buoy their arguments.
—P. Michael Conn, scientist and co-author of The Animal Research War
A rat is a pig is a dog is NOT a boy, is Wesley Smith’s powerful message. He argues fervently that human exceptionalism with due attention to humane treatment of animals is a moral imperative if our society is to survive. And he magnificently defends his view that at its core the term animal rights ‘actually denotes a belief system, an ideology, even a quasi religion, which both implicitly and explicitly seeks to create a moral equivalence between the value of human lives and those of animals.’ The book is a chilling, authoritative account of the danger that animal rights extremism poses to medical progress and is one that I highly recommend to a general audience.
—Adrian R. Morrison, author of An Odyssey With Animals: A Veterinarian’s Reflections on the Animal Rights & Welfare Debate
Thank you Drs. Conn and Morrison for your kind words–and your efforts on behalf of human wellbeing.
No reviews yet. I expect some to conflate animal rights with being nicer to animals, meaning that I am for animal abuse. Of course, neither is true. And that is one of the important points I make in the book. Publicity plans are still being formed. More when I know more.
January 12th, 2010 | 1:08 pm
Congratulations! It’s not too soon to get started on the publicity, though! You’re definitely not a novice, but I have some free tips on my Web site at http://www.buildbookbuzz.com/publicity-tips.htm and lots more in my free e-newsletter. Maybe they will jumpstart your thinking.
I’m looking forward to seeing the reviews.
Cheers,
Sandra Beckwith
January 12th, 2010 | 1:22 pm
Mr. Smith, I am looking forward to reading your new book. I must admit, I have not read any of your books (only your work on the blog and FT). Still, I am excited about A Rat is a Pig…when the world is turned upside down (brave new world is most certainly here), it is comforting to know that there is a voice of sanity and truth. I can’t take anymore for my mind and heart to be continuously offended by twisted behavior–human soul is not something to be used and disposed. Thanks!
January 12th, 2010 | 1:47 pm
Congratulations!
I’ll discuss it with my many friends and colleagues in the pharmaceutical and health care industries.
January 12th, 2010 | 1:54 pm
Let the boycotts begin!
;-)
January 12th, 2010 | 1:59 pm
Social comments and analytics for this post…
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January 12th, 2010 | 3:53 pm
Will this be available on Kindle?
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
January 12th, 2010 at 5:07 pm
I believe so. But to be sure, go to the link on the book and hit the link suggesting you would like it on Kindle. Thanks.
January 12th, 2010 | 4:29 pm
It’s too bad you wrote a whole book starting from a complete misconception of the animal rights movement. But considering who is endorsing your book, I suppose it’s not a coincidence. “Let’s try to scare everyone, and convince them that the mean animal rights people will experiment on their children and advocate eating their mothers. Then it will be easier to dismiss the whole idea of animal rights, and keep our dirty secrets behind closed doors, as usual… Ooooops, they already spotted me!” Yes we have.
January 12th, 2010 | 5:56 pm
Oy!
January 12th, 2010 | 6:39 pm
DON’T CONFLATE ANIMAL RIGHTS WITH LIBERAL WRONGS!!
Good for you, Sebastiano.
Congratulations to Michael Savage for announcing his opposition to research on chimpanzees and talking about what he’s seen in laboratories and commenting on the nature of the people who do vivisection. You said something along the same lines re chimps, I think, here not too long ago, Wesley. How you got onto the wrong detour about animal rights, I’ll never understand. It’s doing the opposite of helping fight the culture of death.
January 12th, 2010 | 7:02 pm
Congrats, Wesley! Looking forward to reading it.
January 13th, 2010 | 12:03 am
Your book sounds excellent, I cannot wait to read it! Also great to hear that Dean Koontz is onboard – we need more people in the public eye with this type of awareness and willingness to speak out about the humaniacs!!
I will encourage everyone I know to buy your book.
Thank you!
January 13th, 2010 | 12:03 am
Emina, check out Consumers Guide to the Brave New World and Culture of Death.
January 13th, 2010 | 12:04 am
Sebastiano and Ianthe, what misconceptions does Wesley have about Animal Rights?
I thought it was the belief that humans and animal are equal, therefore we cannot breed pets, raise/kill animals for meat, milk, fur, leather, keep animals captive in zoos, etc.
January 13th, 2010 | 12:56 pm
Thank you, Don. I most certainly will. (I’m afraid sometimes I feel left out of the technological loop, which provides some of this info. I am not a huge internet user–after a while, all I’m seeing are words coming at me faster than I can actually process them. I am not a multitasker AT ALL, and I like to “digest” the info and knowledge. Sometimes, I wish for the sublime silence). Thanks again.
January 13th, 2010 | 7:41 pm
Seems like this book will attempt to persuade me that I should feel fine about forcing Others to my will. That because I can… I should and ought to… That might makes right… Oh yes, and that unless we commodify, use and kill sentient beings who are lesser than us – we will perish.
Sounds like a re-write of the familiar dis-jointed King James.
I think I’ll pass and wait for Gary Francione’s next book… Certainly the points of “logic” and “consistency” are sadly lacking in this debate thus far.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
January 13th, 2010 at 7:49 pm
Gee, Bea Elliott. Gary is more open minded than you. He was a major source for me even though he knew we disagreed. He plays a prominent role in the book.
January 14th, 2010 | 11:44 am
In regards to those who are already dismissing Mr. Smith’s book: I would like to know how can people already make judgments about something which they haven’t even read? Come on, people! Let us think clearly and logically. After we have read or seen something, only then can we make logical conclusions.
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