WHOEVER SAYS SPECIESISM SAYS FASCISM

(Essay reposted as a result of specific requests by various readers. This article first ran in February of 2007.)

Adventures in the left blogosphere while trying to introduce a discomfitting issue—

It’s a little known fact that factory farms produce more greenhouse gases and land pollution than ALL modes of transportation combined. To be a defender of animals you only need to be a serious environmentalist.

By Patrice Greanville

[dropcap]N[/dropcap]OT TOO LONG AGO I posted, mostly on impulse, as a result of hearing about yet another execrable crime committed against helpless animals (by the usual suspects)…a plea for “progressives” to consider amplifying their scope of moral consideration to include all sentient beings subject to tyrannization. As a lifelong leftist and animal liberationist I am well acquainted with the temperament and idiosyncrasy prevailing in both tribes, and knew quite well that the “left”—however we may define it, has been less than helpful in the struggles to introduce a modicum of compassion in the brutal interactions between humans and non-humans. I know that it seems inane to ask people who are already horribly busy and overstretched coping with the constant tsunami of crime and idiocies produced by this system by the hour…to take yet another “cause” on their shoulders. I am also quite clear about the fact that the Left has never weaned itself off of the 19th century hangover proclaiming “man” (generically speaking) as the measure of all things and therefore center of the universe. This victory of secularism and democracy with a very small “d” was in fact the result of long centuries of struggles against church and king to give rationality and the “common man” a legitimate place at the table of societal decision making. This impromptu essay, therefore, reflected some of these theses.

I posted the blog, as a trial balloon, on SmirkingChimp and DailyKos, large sites occupying what we might call the centrist-liberaloid part of the spectrum. The vast majority of the folks who visit (and participate in) the sites probably see themselves as far more progressive in their politics than they really are, as their commentary reveals a preponderance of mainstream Democrats, ABBrs (Anyone But Bush), Obamabots, a sprinkling of social democrats, and a vociferous contingent of extreme centrists (who naturally never see themselves as extremists). Refreshingly, most of the featured writers seem to be well to the left of the audience (at least at these sites).

He who says speciesism says fascism—

(DailyKos diary at http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/2/2/22518/25695)

Fri Feb 02, 2007 at 08:22:40 PM PST

By Patrice Greanville

We have become indeed not only the most appalling tyranny over every other sentient creature on this planet, including many segments of our own breed, but also a raging, self-righteous cancer extending itself with impunity to every corner of the earth.

Time to do some rethinking

Today, as a result of a voracious industrialism, ecological destruction (to which meat production contributes a significant share) and other related issues, self-defined progressives can’t afford to go on pretending that suffering on such egregious scale is just a peripheral issue, the concern of kooks or affluent diettantes with little interest in other social issues.

Due to a deeply embedded and largely unexamined 18th Century heritage of philosophical “superhumanism” (“man is the measure of all things”) and the rest of that self-celebratory rubbish, which, we should mention in passing, arose as a reaction to a greater form of human stupidity, the one granting God and King total control over human agency, the Left continues to endorse or acquiesce in human supremacist attitudes toward animals.

This moral blindness is inexcusable for those who rightly see themselves as the moral vanguard of humanity. [Check this article, for example: Rethinking Revolution: Animal Liberation, Human Liberation, and the Future of the Left by STEVEN BEST . It’ll probably challenge many of your assumptions.] The bottom line is that speciesism—an underhanded and primitive form of fascism applied to animals and nature in general—is by far the oldest and most pervasive form of enslavement known on our planet. I don’t use the word “fascism” as purely hyperbole in this context or for dramatic effect. I wish it were mostly hyperbole, but the similarities run too deep. Fascism, which worships institutionalized violence, is distinguished for its unilateral proclamations of superiority by a certain race or breed, with such spurious superiority endowing said race with the “right” to dominate, exploit, and annihilate at will any group deemed “inferior.” If that pretty much doesn’t describe eloquently our despicable behavior toward non-human animals, I don’t know what does.

But such narrow-minded and intellectually lazy positions will surely be exposed—sooner rather than later—for the pretentious sham they truly are. For now, in the age of an utterly deranged industrialism, with a global system blatantly proclaiming as its organizing principle the pursuit at any cost of infinite growth in what to any sensible person is a very finite and fragile planet, the tyranny of humans over nature has acquired monstruous proportions. The colossal dimensions of animal exploitation by the industrial method and the death of one species after another grimly attest to that.

COMMENT BY PAUL DONOVAN—[WhatsLeft]

The Status Quo Never Knows Best

This quote sums up the violent opposition met by narrow-minded thinkers on this thread. We are destroying this planet at a rapacious rate, and animals are just as entitled to live in it as we are.

Moreover, you all think you can have your cake and eat it too, and go on living the American nightmare without an ounce of accountability.

I am a leftist, way further to the left than most of you, but I almost hope the Republicans win, just so you will learn your lesson that you can’t support mediocrity and get real results. The animal struggle is no different than the struggle against Bush. These problems of ignorance and mass stupidity are systemic, and the sooner you learn it, the better off we will all be.

To stand against global morality, equality for all (not just a select few as usual), and truth, is to be a reactionary.

Centrism is the problem!

•••

*Paul is here referring to a guy who taunted me by saying he owned TWO beaver hats and was mighty proud of that.—PG

Notes
⁽¹⁾ The precise figure is difficult to ascertain due to the immensity of human/non-human interactions of an exploitive kind, but 75bn creatures of all kinds is currently regarded as extremely conservative, especially now that growing affluence in China, South Korea and even Vietnam, have pushed the consumption of meat and other animal foods to new heights.