Marxist Animalism
- This topic has 973 replies, 32 voices, and was last updated 2 years, 4 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
They voted against inclusion of the EU clause stating animals are sentient.It is obvious what this leaves the field open to.
In other words, they didn't vote that animals have no feelings, only not to include a statement that they do have feelings. Not the same at all. To justify mistreating animals they would have had to have voted that beings that have no feelings can be mistreated. But they didn't vote that. They are not going to scrap what animal protection laws exist. As I suspected, an exaggeration by a well-meaning pressure group that is doing its case (the valid one that people shouldn't be cruel to animals) no good by this sort of illogical argumentation.
Just listened to the news on BBC Radio 4 and an interview with Michael Gove, the minister responsible for this sort of thing, and my interpretation was right — there was no vote that animals have no feelings, just a vote not to include something from the Treaty of Lisbon into the EU withdrawal bill. Gove complained that he had been misinterpreted but that was his own fault as he was playing Brexist politics. He didn't want it included because it was EU legislation and wanted to pass UK legislation saying the same thing.
ALB wrote:Just listened to the news on BBC Radio 4 and an interview with Michael Gove, the minister responsible for this sort of thing, and my interpretation was right — there was no vote that animals have no feelings, just a vote not to include something from the Treaty of Lisbon into the EU withdrawal bill. Gove complained that he had been misinterpreted but that was his own fault as he was playing Brexist politics. He didn't want it included because it was EU legislation and wanted to pass UK legislation saying the same thing.That doesn't necessarily prove that Michael Gove is a sentient being. Perhaps some form of painful experiment could be arranged to investigate the matter?
Except what reason would there be for excluding that clause in particular, except for justifying the removal of restraints on exploitation? The later pronouncements sound like backtracking to me, BECAUSE of the outrage provoked.
In the minds of a Brexshitter like Gove, simply because it was part of some EU legislation. I agree, though, that his attempt to assert "British sovereignity" in the matter has backfired on the obnoxious little shit.
The current furore over animal feelings could only be an issue in a society of animals which will go to whatever extremes to say it is not a society of animals.We humans are so screwed up in our relationship with nature, with one another as well as other animals that we take as given a superstition of old that we, a single animal species, are not animals and that all other species are.It is as though we were dropped from the skies as gods.And indeed, that is almost precisely the western, monotheistic, view of things. It has even corrupted eastern religions too.We say "animals", excluding ourselves. The only time we call a human an animal is if we want to insult them or accuse them of dreadful things, usually of things only we humans do.If one says "other animals", including ourselves under the term, it raises a frown at least, and might cost you a job in a petshop or zoo. God forbid one should say FELLOW ANIMALS!
Tim Kilgallon wrote:ALB wrote:Just listened to the news on BBC Radio 4 and an interview with Michael Gove, the minister responsible for this sort of thing, and my interpretation was right — there was no vote that animals have no feelings, just a vote not to include something from the Treaty of Lisbon into the EU withdrawal bill. Gove complained that he had been misinterpreted but that was his own fault as he was playing Brexist politics. He didn't want it included because it was EU legislation and wanted to pass UK legislation saying the same thing.That doesn't necessarily prove that Michael Gove is a sentient being. Perhaps some form of painful experiment could be arranged to investigate the matter?
Gove can borrow a pair of my overalls and spend a 12 hour night shift in a shipyard with me. That should be painful to a parasite like him.
ANTHROPOMORPHISM: 1) Lions catch and eat their food. "Sociologists" use it to justify human warfare. 2) Two monkeys clutch each other before a lab worker seizes one to hand to a vivisector. "Stop fussing", says the vivisector, "'it" doesn't have feelings." 3) Gentle primates are rigged with an electrical device and given shocks until they go crazed and attack each other. This is used to justify human warfare. 4) Two pigs demonstrate affection and play games with each other. "Rubbish!" says an academic, "They're animals. They don't feel love!" Human chauvinists will throw the word "anthropomorphism" at you when it suits them, yet commit it when it suits them to justify both their speciesism and their support of the state.
Oh dear, John Oswald isn't going to like this title:http://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/we-are-human-beings-not-animals.html
https://www.alternet.org/books/where-did-we-get-idea-human-beings-are-superior-all-other-creatures
Quote:Aristotle, who believed that logic and reason ruled the universe. Only man possessed a rational mind, and this made him supreme. Animals lacked reason and therefore were inferior. "Plants exist for the sake of animals, and brute beasts for the sake of man—domestic animals for his use and food, wild ones for food and other accessories of life, such as clothing and various tools. Since nature makes nothing purposeless or in vain, it is undeniably true that she has made all the animals for the sake of man." Aristotle envisioned the universe as a Great Chain of Being, built on a vertical hierarchy of power. Humans were in the top slot, followed by land mammals, then dolphins, reptiles, birds, amphibians, and fish. At the bottom were rock and earth…St. Thomas Aquinas explicitly explained that men should not worry about killing or causing suffering to animals because they had no souls and were as dumb as trees. We wouldn’t feel bad about cutting down trees, would we?In sum, it was St. Thomas Aquinas who allowed the guilt-free usage of animals. “Charity” does not extend to “irrational creatures,” he wrote. And “humans have no fellowship with animals.”Quote:In sum, it was St. Thomas Aquinas who allowed the guilt-free usage of animals.Isn't this putting the cart before the horse or, in Marxist terms, the superstructure before the base? In Mediaeval Europe animals were used as essential means of production and as means of consumption. Aquinas's views were an ideological reflection of this basic material fact. It wasn't because he taught this that animals were used for human ends but the other way round.
But like in every era, a minority hold different views. The following believed in kindness to nonhumans:Sts. Basil, John Chrysostom, Francis. St Basil even declared an animal has a life for its self, not just to benefit humans. And before the Christian ascendancy, both religious and secular vegetarianism was gaining ground in the final decades of paganism.
Hmm. Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas sound like some SPGBers and Marxists.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.