Marxist Animalism
- This topic has 973 replies, 32 voices, and was last updated 2 years, 4 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
I don’t really understand what your beef is John. (I admit that’s not a very appropriate choice of wording, but no cattle were harmed in the production of this post)
😀
Whether we save the biosphere may or may not be possible, but we can’t begin to try until socialism, which we have yet to establish.
So what are you banging on about then?
What is this “speciesism” that is supposed to be rife in the Party and the Socialist Standard? It seems to be a philosophical theory, concocted by animal-rightist philosopher Peter Singer to morally justify being a vegetarian. Animals should have the same “rights” as humans so that eating them is as morally reprehensible as cannibalism.
But of course “rights” is a bourgeois concept and as we, as Marxists, deny that humans have rights we can’t be accused of favouritism towards humans when we say that animals haven’t either. I hasten to add that this does not mean that cruelty to humans and animals (or cannibalism) is ok. It merely means that this has to be condemned on some other basis than “rights”.
It’s true that most party members are not vegetarians and that the Party is not a vegetarianist party. So of course you are not going to find articles advocating this or condemning meat-eating in the Standard. (You will of course find articles condemning the mistreatment of animals under capitalism.)
So, the charge of “speciesism” is ill-founded, not to say specious.
Speciesism is the view that any human life is more important than all nonhuman lives.
A speciesist would see the extinction of all the gorillas on the planet as less of a tragedy than the death of one single human.
A speciesist would say we should leave a dog who is a dear and close friend to burn in a house in order to rescue a human we don’t know at all or may even hate.
A speciesist will mock a man grieving the loss of a beloved nonhuman, and scoff, “It’s only a dog!”A speciesist will write that since humans evolved, there is nothing left of interest to evolve on this planet. (SPGB inner memo, typed – and no, I am not going to strain my back turning out my library and papers to find the source!)
A speciesist will write that humans are “evolution’s supreme achievement”, and that other animals are “simply an animal repeated.” (Socialist Standard).
A speciesist will say that if a trophy hunter is about to kill a lion, and the only way to stop the hunter is to kill him, then it is best to let him shoot the lion.I have, by the way, read again after many years the “Don’t Be Cruel” article, and see it is not a bad article (1995), so would like to withdraw it from my list above.
I have already said I do not subscribe to “rights”, which is bourgeois language.
Vegetarianism is not the only issue. Capitalism is unleashing a holocaust on wildlife, remember. Those who work as wildlife protectors hear the guns every day. Inedible animals like lions fret short lives in cages before being set at large to be shot for “sport.”
The article seems to equate, however, animals per se with food. Not all of us, upon seeing a pig, a cow, a rabbit, a chicken, think food. Some of us see beings, and think they should have lives – as do the 80% or so of herbivores in the wild who don’t get eaten.
Succumbing to being food is not the same as being imprisoned (farmed) as food, where one’s doom is certain.
We raise other beings to suffer, and killing a sentient being is not “humane”, no matter how much you remove it from public sight.
And “humane” and “humanitarian” are speciesist words, as are the terms of abuse, “cow”, “pig”, “animal”, etc., which we use as such.
“Brute”, “brutal”, and “bestial” too.Humans are the only animals that commit atrocities. We use “humane”/”humanitarian” and “bestial”/”brutish”/”animal” the wrong way round!
I don’t think most of those arguments have ever been expressed in the Socialist Standard.
Only three on the list offer some albeit vague details, one of which is to an internal document (and so did not appear in the Standard). It would be useful to have had an exact reference about “evolution’s supreme achievement” but even that would be an one-off. And that would hardly make it a view that was “rife”.
The remaining article does not “mock” those who believe that animals have or should have “rights” but is a general criticism of the concept of “rights”, offering an alternative theory as to why humans should not be cruel to other animals. It is not about vivisection and the subject is not even mentioned. Why would we want to mock those against it as that’s a reasonable view that most people share?
Anyway people here can judge for themselves as here it is:
The basic message and practical application of both animal righters and the article is “don’t be cruel” whoever said it and whatever the philosophical justification behind it.
As you see above, I admit to bad memory in this case, and withdrew it from my list.
The “supreme achievement” example is cited in my orange booklet I posted to you some years ago.
Ok. Thanks. I will see if I can dig out that orange booklet.
The other views you list may well be examples of “speciesism” but you are not saying that they were expressed in the Standard, are you? It is inconceivable that views like those below would ever get past any editorial committee. In fact I can’t conceive of anyone expressing them except as a provocation.
A speciesist would see the extinction of all the gorillas on the planet as less of a tragedy than the death of one single human.
A speciesist will mock a man grieving the loss of a beloved nonhuman, and scoff, “It’s only a dog!”
A speciesist will say that if a trophy hunter is about to kill a lion, and the only way to stop the hunter is to kill him, then it is best to let him shoot the lion.
No, but you asked me what speciesism is.
I’m not including animals hunting for food as an atrocity. Only the atrocities that humans alone commit, but which we describe as “animal”, “brutal”, “bestial”, etc.
However, chimps are prone to fratricidal acts as a result of an illness, I believe, which can afflict some troupes. They are not like the totally gentle bonobos.
They are also opportunistic meat-eaters, unlike gorillas, who are total frugivores and gentler, in spite of their portrayal in human popular culture.
You are not a little behind the chimp/bonobo curve.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/04/190430091846.htm
We live in a brutal and violent society. Acts of cruelty are committed everyday and the vast majority of us are unconcerned. Our video Kid’s Stuff starts with an observation that if we don’t experience it first hand, we don’t require to think about it or make any connections
Supermarkets place meat already nicely filleted on spotless shelves inside shrink-wrapped plastic, all the blood miraculously missing, all the smell of flesh gone. I’m of the age that I recall traditional butchers that had the animal carcasses hung from hooks on full display and I remember the stink.
I’ve worked with several people who had jobs in abattoirs and a shared personality trait I found in them, was a lack of empathy, not only for the animals but for other people’s suffering. Anecdotal evidence, I admit. But confirmed by others I have spoken to. Like soldiers in a war, those involved in the meat industry are brutalised by their jobs.
I’ve said before, it will not be by the will of the wider community that meat-eating will disappear but by the fact that those willing to perform the task of killing animals will not be stepping forward. A few may do so in rural areas shooting rabbits or pigeons or what not but it will not be on any industrial scale. And those religions that call for prayer and blessings with the ritual slitting of animals throats and their bleeding will also happily wither away.
As sociopathic personalities melt away because of peoples new relationships with one another, so will those who carry out the savagery of providing meat on the table.
We are distanced not just from how domesticated animals are reared, but how they are slaughtered. Out of sight – out of mind. JO is doing us a service by being our conscience. Continually reminding us of the barbaric practices of society.
Let us not forget, that only by building a new society will all the ills of the world begin to end. JO understands this, only too well.
The Party is not made up of angels and saints. Many of us, too, are flawed individuals and we carry the baggage of how we ourselves were brought up. But to help in the task of social evolution, we as individuals must abandon aspects of that upbringing, the nationalism, the racism, the sexism, the homophobia, to many just a few prejudices socialists are required to jettison so that we can achieve the cooperative commonwealth.
We have not made it a condition of membership to be a vegetarian or vegan, nor advocates for non-violence and pacifism. JO understands this. We have not made it a rule that we should embrace sack-cloth and ashes of monks. Billionaires are very welcome to join the Party. Hedonism nor abstinence as far as I know are not forbidden. (as an aside, I recall at the 70s conference when the Libertarian Communist group surfaced, one party wag coined the description of us as Libertine Communists)
However, we do reflect our fellow-workers, and in many ways, we are part of the forefront of change, so I would expect to see a rise in vegetarian/vegan lifestyles, and an increased awareness of our speciesism. Socialism is the only hope we have where we have the possibility of living in harmony with one another and with other living creatures.
But I will not treat all life-forms as equal. I’m very pleased that humanity succeeded in the eco-cide of the smallpox virus, that we are well on our way to make polio extinct and i hail the day we exterminate the tuberculosis bacteria from the face of the Earth.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.