Oh, the HUMANITY!

It’s not about me, it’s about trying to be consistent in the general principles of how people socialize. Hiding bigotry by expanding the winner’s circle hides symptoms but leaves the underlying mechanisms and rationalizations intact, which only shifts the boundaries again of ingroup/outgroup, oppressed/oppressors.

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Hang on! Almost there for you…

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It’s like the portrait of Dorian Gray, just, ya know, without the portrait.

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I’m not sure if this is not an elaborate troll, but you do realize that this would expand the “in-group” to literally every person on the planet, leaving nobody to be oppressed?

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No, I realize that humans are a vast minority. And that recognizing personhood of only one group IS the mechanism of oppression. The semantics of which operate by saying that those who don’t fit under that umbrella (such as non-humans) supposedly are not oppressed because since they are excluded categorically, they don’t matter in the context of the discussion. But that’s the same exact way bigotry has always worked.

Of course, I can empathize that humans conceding their ‘stewardship’ of the planet would seem really inconvenient. But as some say, ‘When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.’

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Because that certainly rolls off the tongue. And if you think about it, we can be pretty sure that respect and agency actually are species specific ideas. You can debate what species, sure, but all plant matter constitutes both life, and a wide variety of species. I would argue that grass, of any variety, is not deserving of respect or agency. You can plant it, mow it, step on it, whatever. It’s grass. It doesn’t care.

Likewise in the animal kingdom, I have a gnat problem in my house. I don’t think it makes me one of history’s greatest monsters to leave out apple cider vinegar traps for them.

What’s attracting the gnats is my cat, who I certainly believe has more rights then they do, but he still has to go to the vet and get his checkups, regardless of his personal feelings on the matter.

And, of course, humans have rights that our closest kin don’t. We don’t let other primates vote in elections, and I believe that’s a wise and fair decision, as they do not appear able to understand the issues, or even what it is that they’re doing.

In conclusion, an appeal to humanity, or human rights, is a perfectly valid one.

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As a vegan for the last twenty-two years and counting, I heartily endorse this proposition. Should we widen the circle of compassion and respect to include (more) nonhuman beings? Damn right we should. Can we have a discussion about humanity and human rights without talking about frogs? I fucking hope so.

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Present leadership would appear to contradict the first half of your assertion.

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Are you vegan?

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Are you dancer?

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The reductio-ad-absurdum of that position, assuming you’re serious (my irony meter is broken today), is that there are surely things out there that do not have agency in the same sense that we do, Conway’s free-will theorem notwithstanding. I don’t think that an electron, a rock, or a toilet need to be accorded all that much autonomy, and they need to be respected only to the extent of “if you make a mess, clean it up as much as possible.” We can argue about where to draw the line, but it almost surely should encompass all functioning members of our species.

As an ecologist, and botanist, I allow myself to disagree on principle. You ought to respect grasses, and if only for the services and provisions they provide. Utilitarian bullshit aside, I can still cut the grass and respect it inherently. Not so sure about your agency point, though. =)

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Is this the Questions thread?

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At the risk of playing devil’s advocate here, another topic recently got me thinking along these lines. 100 years ago or more, most people were used to killing (or seeing killed) animals (livestock, varmints, predators) as a routine (and necessary) part of their daily lives. Viewing animals as subhuman was a natural way to not see themselves as evil for doing so. A side effect of that was that deeming certain groups of people as subhuman inherently justified abuse and killings (eugenics and racism) and they did not view themselves as evil or feel too upset by it.

Nowadays, very few of us routinely kill animals (other than insects) and we’d feel bad if we did. We also generally see eugenics and racism as evil. When people bring out the term ‘subhuman’, it is inherently tied to how we view animals, and to how comfortable we are with abusing or killing them. At those edges, our attitudes toward animals definitely affect our attitudes toward our fellow humans.

Another thought was that people back then spent a lot more time with animals, and relied and depended much more on them, including work horses and dogs, etc. It would seem reasonable that they would have had more respect for them. But by viewing them as a lower class only fit for (slave) workers, predators, or food, then it makes sense. And from a class standpoint, that lies on a continuum with the lower and middle classes of humanity, all of which might be seen as subhuman by the upper class. Viewed as a continuum like that, raising the floor of how animals are perceived and treated also raises the bar even for how the upper middle class is perceived and treated.

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Interestingly enough, much of the negative Twitter response to these comments included pics of him with slaughtered animals, including this one from Mark Hamill:

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True, though I’m not sure the causation runs in that direction. It seems more likely that we have more respect for animals now as a by-product of how we treat humans, or that both are caused by a third influence. In the latter case, if we take on the philosophy that most creatures feel pain, and that it’s bad to cause undue pain, we treat both animals and people better. In the former case, if we start treating all of the humans better, it removes justification for bad treatment of animals. If you’re comfortable abusing the lower classes or owning slaves, how are you possibly going to mind the suffering of something less intelligent, and that doesn’t even look like you? Once you start treating all humans as equals, it opens up the question of how moral it is to cause animal suffering.

Another potential third factor is scientific advancement. As time goes on, we’re less dependent on animals. For most first world nations, it’s fully possible to have a healthy vegan diet. It’s much harder to question the morality of killing animals for food when you actually need to do it in order to survive. That’s not the case anymore. We also don’t need to uses horses for transport or labor anymore, so we can question how ethical it is to force an animal to haul heavy things around. Likewise, it’s harder to keep an underclass as technology advances. Things like, say, the printing press made it possible to mass produce writing, which meant lower classes had access to books, and thus reason to learn to read. That allows for self education, which allows people to get all sorts of ideas the upper classes might not like.

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Deep down, aren’t all threads the questions thread?

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