Date: Mon, 06 Dec 2004 23:36:57 -0500
From: hugh bone <hbone-AT-optonline.net>
Subject: Re: sideways - incapacity


Yes, of course.

It may be easier to love all the animals than to love all the people.

Then there are the plants, the sun,  the moon, the stars.

regards,
Hugh

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----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Eric" <ericandmary-AT-earthlink.net>
To: <lyotard-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
Sent: Saturday, December 04, 2004 11:45 AM
Subject: RE: sideways - incapacity


> Steve wrote:
> 
> If what is 'just' is founded on an understanding that a given 'human' 
> has more value than any non-human then I have to reject it. 
> 
> Steve, 
> 
> I think this misses the point.  Justice is not based on a primary notion
> of humanism, but on the involved parties fairly. This includes animals
> as much as humans. I recently read a piece by David Foster Wallace
> (Infinite Jest) in Gourmet magazine of all places which did an admirable
> job of questioning the morality of boiling lobsters because of the pain
> it may inflict on the animal. It certainly made me think more deeply
> about these issues.  
> 
> Your stance, however, is opposed to this kind of thinking on the issues.
> Instead you tend to reduce all forms of humanism to a theological
> position and to reject it on these grounds, referring instead to a plane
> of immanence in which all animals are the same.  
> 
> In taking this position I think you are confusing a number of issues. In
> the first place, you don't establish any real grounds as to why your
> position should be accepted. As I pointed out, one can be Darwinian and
> non-theistic and still come to a very different conclusion than the one
> that you reach. Furthermore you seem to conflate the plane of immanence
> with specific organisms like George the cat in ways that appear to
> contradict Deleuze's own point about this, namely, that the virtual,
> molecular, bwo plane of immanence precedes in ontological fashion the
> molar organism.
> 
> Finally, your stance leaves you with no place to really develop a
> meaningful ethics or politics.  Unlike the humanistic logic of DFW which
> states that it is wrong to cause pain to others, even if these others
> are lobsters, you really can't go beyond your own critique in any
> meaningful way. 
> 
> Let's consider George the cat as a case in point. We know that cats are
> domesticated animals which would not be capable of living at their
> present population levels if they were not human pets.  Yet at the same
> time they remain remarkable predators who biologists claim have
> decimated the song bird population in many areas.
> 
> By defending George the cat as well as crow (who, let's face it, are
> scavengers dependent upon human populations in much the same ways as
> rats and cockroaches), aren't you really advocating a back door
> humanism. You defend the rights of the cat and crow, but what about
> those of the song bird?  Aren't you practicing your own form of cultural
> imperialism?  
> 
> If you acknowledge the song bird its rights, then do you deny the cat
> its right as predator? Unless you are arguing that all animals must
> become vegan (and then who will speak out for the rights of plants
> against such animal chauvinism!) your stance cannot really maintain a
> coherent position that can speak to issues and tell us what is to be
> done. Simply put, to favor cats is to disfavor song birds and vice
> versa. 
> 
> The reality is that nature is not a human construct, but a zero-sum game
> in which some specific organism benefit under a specific environment
> while others perish.  To merely prescribe all animals as equal upon an
> abstract plane of immanence doesn't really say much of how we should
> treat animals (let alone each other) in any concrete fashion.  
> 
> I'll gladly take my stance as a rational and responsible humanist
> against your own religion of pantheistic animal fundamentalism.
> 
> eric    
>