File spoon-archives/anarchy-list.archive/anarchy-list_2003/anarchy-list.0301, message 132


From: "Dave Coull" <coull2-AT-btinternet.com>
Subject: RE: Ann Hansen talks shite
Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 09:55:27 -0000




Chucko wrote


> Many anarchists are drawn to animal rights 
> for different reasons


"Rights" are things that people claim, and which
people, through getting together with other people,
assert in practice. Like I said


>> there is a major difference between, on the one hand,
>> "animal rights", and, on the other hand, "women's rights"
>> or "queer rights". The major difference is that  _women_
>> initiated the women's rights movement. WOMEN  took direct
>> action in support of (for instance) their right to vote.
>> The same applies to queer rights. Homosexuals took direct
>> action to assert their rights. But most animals are quite
>> incapable of understanding the concept of "rights". In fact,
>> most animals are quite incapable of understanding the concept
>> "animals". If you take a cat and a dog, for instance, they
>> are incapable of understanding the idea that together they 
>> form a class which is oppressed by humans. Now, this is
>> not to deny that animals  _are_  oppressed by humans. As
>> a matter of fact I am all in favour of compassionate treatment
>> of animals. But that is a different matter from "rights".
>> Rights are something you fight for. When Tom and Jerry
>> (and Fido) all band together and take collective action,
>> not in a cartoon but in real life, I will believe in 
>> "animal rights".


So anarchists who talk in terms of "animal rights" 
have cotton wool where their brains should be.


> I don't see that animal rights is an essential aspect 
> of anarchism, but it is an important issue to anarchists 
> in the movement.


It is important to some of the more woolly-minded anarchs,
from middle class backgrounds, in North America and the UK. 
But even in these regions it is a minority interest, and as 
for anarchists in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, this is
a  _very_  low priority. 

 
> Since anarchism does change over time and isn't some bible 
> with gospels according to Bakunin, Proudhon, Kropotkin, 
> and Goldman


Look, I don't give a shit about that elitist Bakunin, or that 
racist Proudhon, or the warmonger Kropotkin. You are erecting
a straw man to try to make  _your_  thinking seem "original".
Well, it isn't. In all the years I have been reading stuff
you have sent, I have never once known you to come out with 
one single thing that caused me to say "Wow! I never thought 
of it like that before!" 


> we have to accept that anarchism will include new things 
> that may not be of interest to all of us.


No we don't. I accept that a small minority of anarchs 
from more privileged backgrounds in more "developed"
countries have woolly-minded ideas about animal rights. 
But they have these woolly-minded thoughts _despite_ 
being anarchs, and not as a  _part_  of being anarchs.


Dave Coull



   

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