From: amanda_mary	Date: September 7th, 2007 04:21 pm (UTC)		(Link)

Hoo boy.

	From: evil_fizz	Date: September 7th, 2007 04:29 pm (UTC)		(Link)

I eagerly await the explanation about why she needed to liken the cow to a person with a disability. I just won't be waiting underwater.

	From: brooklynite	Date: September 7th, 2007 05:07 pm (UTC)		(Link)

My guess is that Daisy's right --- that it was just a half-formed response to an anticipated objection. But yeah, dry land sounds like a good place to spend the wait.

	From: evil_fizz	Date: September 7th, 2007 05:20 pm (UTC)		(Link)

I suspect Daisy's right as well, but I have to wonder in light of Elaine's comments about the essence of animals. It doesn't seem to me that she's talking as much about cognitive ability as she is about a concept akin to souls.

In which case, it just got even more offensive.

	From: brooklynite	Date: September 7th, 2007 05:54 pm (UTC)		(Link)

She's posted a new response, which includes the following:

Just because we’re different in this or that way doesn’t mean we don’t owe it to non-human animals and to ourselves to treat other living beings with respect, compassion.

And that clarifies a lot, actually. When she thinks about subordination in any of these contexts --- the subordination of animals, the subordination of slaves, the subordination of people with disabilities --- she's imagining herself in the dominant role, and rejecting it. Her "we" is the community of people who have the power to subordinate, not the community of people (and animals) in danger of being subordinated.

"We" shouldn't enslave people, she's saying. "We" shouldn't deny rights to those who have disabilities, or to those who were born of a different species than ourselves. And that's great, as far as it goes. But it reveals that her moral imagination is more concerned with the commonalities of the oppressor than with those of the oppressed, and it explains why these glib equivalencings (equivalentings? equivalencies?) of widely divergent subordinated communities leap so freely to her mind.

	From: evil_fizz	Date: September 7th, 2007 06:29 pm (UTC)		(Link)

I''l have to go read the entire thing, but I am still perplexed by the idea that she thinks that owning a dog and treating it with respect and compassion are somehow mutually exclusive.

From: (Anonymous)	Date: September 7th, 2007 06:40 pm (UTC)		(Link)

I don't think they're mutually exclusive and I never said so. My beef is with owning a dog, period. It's with the ownership aspect, not the treatment.

-Elaine

	From: evil_fizz	Date: September 7th, 2007 06:53 pm (UTC)		(Link)

So explain to me: how does one own versus guard? What's the moral distinction here and why is it material?

I get the feeling that part of the issue is that if one thinks of owning a pet, then you can do what you like with said pet, even if what you're doing is wrong and cruel. But as a matter of law in the U.S., that isn't true. (I know, commercial agriculture is a whole different ball of wax, but let's stick with having a dog.)

If there is no difference between how one treats a dog that one owns versus acts as a guardian for, what is the problem?

From: (Anonymous)	Date: September 8th, 2007 04:16 am (UTC)		(Link)

If that is the case, which often it isn't, then the problem is with the rest of the world that treats the dog as property.

-Elaine

	From: harriettheelf	Date: September 7th, 2007 11:23 pm (UTC)		(Link)

But Elaine, you yourself own a dog.

??

From: (Anonymous)	Date: September 8th, 2007 04:06 am (UTC)		(Link)

I care for a dog. Legally, technically I own him. But I didn't put a price tag on his head and I never will. It's an imperfect world and so long as there are dogs in shelters, I will be rescuing some of them.

Besides, even if it makes me a hypocrite, that does nothing to disprove my point. A smoker can tell you smoking is bad for you. You can say they're a hypocrite but they're still being honest.

-Elaine

	From: harriettheelf	Date: September 8th, 2007 07:43 am (UTC)		(Link)

That's not a good analogy. Smokers might tell me smoking's bad for me, but that's not the same as telling me I'm a bad person if I smoke. Which, essentially, is what you've been doing.

From: metaphorcerise	Date: September 9th, 2007 01:27 pm (UTC)		(Link)

"I'll have to go read the entire thing, but I am still perplexed by the idea that she thinks that owning a dog and treating it with respect and compassion are somehow mutually exclusive."

This is wrong, in a useful way. That it's possible to own another sentient being and treat it with respect and compassion doesn't mean that the institution that allows them to be treated otherwise is okay. It was possible in the antebellum South to treat slaves with the same respect and compaassion as one's family. That doesn't mean slavery was okay; it wasn't, because the institution itself permitted just the opposite treatment.

The fact that you're willing to turn your life upside down to accommodate a dog doesn't mean it's okay to own a dog, because the institution of ownership allows you to do all sorts of bad things to a dog.

Yes it's true that there are laws that limit the amount of bad you can do, but it was, in the slave states, and is, with respect to dog ownership, still possible to treat the objects of ownership pretty badly, even if the laws are obeyed, which often they are not.

The comparison is, I'd agree, a bit problematic, but that's because it's hard to say what ownership consists of. If my cats can come and go, and keep coming back, is that ownership? If I sponsor an impoverished teen from Bhutan and bring him to the U.S. and let him live in my house and pay for a year of vocational training, is he my slave? I don't think so in either case. I think that's why the original argument including breeding, which seems to make it over-the-top, planned ownership, and why Elaine at one point mentioned rescuing animals, which seems just the opposite.

	From: brooklynite	Date: September 9th, 2007 01:43 pm (UTC)		(Link)

I agree with you that the concept of ownership of animals is very much worth examining critically. But for me the essence of slavery is the abrogation of another's right to autonomy, and I think the ways in which a domesticated animal and a human being could be said to have a right to autonomy are so different that I'm not at all convinced the term "slavery" is a useful one to use in interrogating the idea of animal ownership.

If there is a useful, narrowly-tailored argument in which such an analogy would be a good one, Elaine didn't come particularly close to finding it --- I'm not going to be at all receptive to charges of animal "slavery" from someone who doesn't think it's problematic that she leashes and cages her dogs, for starters.

	From: evil_fizz	Date: September 9th, 2007 01:47 pm (UTC)		(Link)

The fact that you're willing to turn your life upside down to accommodate a dog doesn't mean it's okay to own a dog, because the institution of ownership allows you to do all sorts of bad things to a dog.

Which I don't think is true as a legal matter. Animal cruelty laws still exist, and we put legal limits on owning property all the time. (I may own a petrochemical factory, but I can't burn it down for fun even if I have no intent of collecting the insurance or anything. I cannot sell my kidney. I own my dog, but I can't torture her.) In so far as this goes, I think that conceptualizing animals as property is a better understanding of their dependence and needs and the fact that if there is a dispute over who gets to take a certain terrier home (i.e., the one currently in my living room), I do in fact have a claim of right to her.

I can still do a lot of harm to my dog even if I were to treat her as I am legally allowed to treat other humans. There is no crime, for example, in yelling at other people or dogs, saying hateful things, and otherwise being loud and obnoxious. Verbally abusing others isn't criminal.

Yes it's true that there are laws that limit the amount of bad you can do, but it was, in the slave states, and is, with respect to dog ownership, still possible to treat the objects of ownership pretty badly, even if the laws are obeyed, which often they are not.

I actually think that we now have in place more limits on animal cruelty than we ever had on limits cruelty to slaves. You couldn't rape a slave, you were free to flog them, causing their death was not a murder.

I think that there is a better argument here to be made when it comes to factory slaughter and commercial agra business, but the analogy is still inherently flawed.

	From: brooklynite	Date: September 7th, 2007 06:05 pm (UTC)		(Link)

I just posted a version of my previous comment over at EV's place, and a last paragraph occurred to me as I was editing it:

"I would grant you that the mentality of the slaveowner and that of the dairy farmer may have more in common than those of us who eat cheese would like to admit. That’s a proposition that’s worth taking seriously. But it doesn’t follow that the experience of the enslaved person and the experience of the dairy cow are the same, or that of the enslaved person and that of the store-bought hamster."

	From: harriettheelf	Date: September 7th, 2007 04:41 pm (UTC)		(Link)

Effing THANK YOU.

It's like privilege bingo with this woman. White? Check! Ableist? Check!

	From: daisydeadhead	Date: September 7th, 2007 04:52 pm (UTC)		(Link)

Very, very bad way to make a point.

In fact, better to just say there is no difference between a cow and a person.

Unfortunately, we (we = animal rights activists) feel uncomfortable and ideologically compromised saying that, so we don't; we know people will laugh at that comparison, even if that is how we really feel. People feel the necessity to talk about sentience and awareness as proof that a creature is worthy of respect and therefore the freedom NOT to be food. Part of whole thing with dogs (and why people don't eat dogs, and trash Michael Vick for objectifying them, etc.) is that dogs are smart and appear to have human-like emotions. (As Samuel L. Jackson famously said, a dog has a personality, and a personality will take you a long way.)

So, to make the point, animal rights people come back with the argument: hey, what about these people with no 'awareness'? Huh? What about THEM? (Peter Singer started this line of defense, if memory serves.)

That is using the dominant culture's biases. We need to come up with new ways of making our points, not old able-bodiest tropes. If animals have equal rights with humans, then that means all humans. Stop distinguishing between which ones: dogs, rats, cows, young, old, able or disabled, etc.

That's why it's such a hard argument to make, once you get started. That's why you'll never see ME arguing that way, since on some level, not sure I believe rats and people are equal, and I DO discriminate... as we all do.

Sorry to ramble, but I've thought SO much about this stuff...

(Cross-posted this reply at Brooklynite!)

	From: brooklynite	Date: September 7th, 2007 04:58 pm (UTC)		(Link)

We need to come up with new ways of making our points, not old able-bodiest tropes. If animals have equal rights with humans, then that means all humans. Stop distinguishing between which ones: dogs, rats, cows, young, old, able or disabled, etc.

Right. It's all or nothing, once you start down that road. Which is why, as you say, it's a road whose first step is best avoided.

From: (Anonymous)	Date: September 8th, 2007 04:22 am (UTC)		(Link)

The point is about difference. Difference is not a justification for abuse, ownership, enslavement, oppression, control, etc. That's why the use of historically oppressed persons as examples, because the justification is always the 'difference'.

	From: amanda_mary	Date: September 7th, 2007 05:43 pm (UTC)		(Link)

So, to make the point, animal rights people come back with the argument: hey, what about these people with no 'awareness'? Huh? What about THEM?

In addition to the other (major) problems with this line of reason (and I do realize that it's not a line of reason you are supporting here, daisydeadhead; I'm just couching my response in yours), it strikes me as ... capitulating, in a way. If the entire basis for the argument is that non-human animals should not be made to conform to humans' lifestyles, then why furhter anthropomorphize them by drawing this parallel -- particularly if the intention is not to simultaneously ... "animalize" ... an emblematic Person With Mental Disabilities.

From: (Anonymous)	Date: September 7th, 2007 06:51 pm (UTC)		(Link)

I basically did say it.
I said 'animals are people too' and 'animals have personalities' and I compared human children to animals. We've all been children, right? So...

	From: evil_fizz	Date: September 8th, 2007 12:11 am (UTC)		(Link)

Well, she's now limited the thread to "ethical vegans" so I suppose I will never know what it means to impose my will upon my terrier.

	From: brooklynite	Date: September 8th, 2007 12:48 am (UTC)		(Link)

Yup. She told me to go away, and then she asked me a question. I think I'm going to go with the first one.

	From: evil_fizz	Date: September 8th, 2007 12:52 am (UTC)		(Link)

I love how Jessica has to defend herself but Elaine doesn't.