On the possibility of human extinction

I’ve been contemplating the question of how I might present a brief introduction on what, as a critique on our system of social organization, is really a rather large topic: vegetarian ecofeminism. I’m due to present this at a scholarly conference in September, so it’s not too early to begin thinking about it.

In the abstract, among other things, I say “that our relations of domination among humans are inseparable from our domination of the environment and of non-human animals.” And, as written, I think the abstract illustrates that there are a lot of handles on this topic.[1] So the obvious question is, which one shall I use? Read more

  1. [1]David Benfell, “I will be presenting on vegetarian ecofeminism at the Human Science Institute conference this September,” I Am My Cat’s Human, July 6, 2016, https://vegan.parts-unknown.org/?p=326

I will be presenting on vegetarian ecofeminism at the Human Science Institute conference this September

I will be presenting on the topic of vegetarian ecofeminism at the Human Science Institute conference this September. The approved abstract follows:

Vegetarian ecofeminism is a scholarly approach to an idea also expressed by animal rights activists, that our relations of domination among humans are inseparable from our domination of the environment and of non-human animals.

Among humans, a social system of organization that relies heavily on power relationships of domination has prevailed since the Neolithic. Its failure appears in the failure of elites to address numerous existential threats to humanity, some of which are cited by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists in keeping the Doomsday Clock. These include climate change and various nuclear-related threats. This failure also appears with social inequality, physical violence, and in deprivations that David Barash and Charles Webel label structural violence. Riane Eisler points to a devaluing of and even the absence of remuneration for ‘caring’ jobs often filled by women.

With the environment, a relationship of domination has proven to be devastating. Even as our population now exceeds by thirty times the number the earth is estimated to have been able to support in hunter-gatherer societies, it continues to grow. Even as people go without enough to eat, we rely on grossly inefficient—in food and water consumption by farmed animals—livestock production that significantly contributes to climate change and water pollution.

Our power relationship with animals combines the ills of the other two. Factory farms and slaughterhouses are environmentally disastrous and require us to suspend compassion for non-human animals. Vegetarian ecofeminists (among others) connect dairy practices with crimes against women, including sexual assault and rape. More broadly, one might connect the reduction of living bodies to units of production with slavery and other abusive labor practices among humans.

This presentation will point to a more egalitarian end, for humans, animals, and the environment, as a goal for social change.

I expect this to be a rather brief introduction. I’m allotted twenty minutes including discussion.

When experts are not experts

“The key dividing line in the U.S.,” writes John Feffer of the polarization that has bedeviled the Obama presidency, that lies behind the ‘Brexit’ vote, and that now portends a possible Donald Trump presidency, “had little to do with Republican vs. Democrat, rich vs. poor, or liberal vs. conservative.”[1] The “rich vs. poor” part of that is an audacious claim. It excludes folks who, as Bill Black is careful to point out, do not merely “feel” “left behind” but are “in fact being left in the dust by the financial elites,”[2] and who, as Tracy Thompson describes them, “have been banished to life far away and out of sight” in what she describes as a “weirdly depopulated landscape.”[3] That they might not be counted among the poor is wholly contradicted by the remainder of Feffer’s article.[4] Read more

  1. [1]John Feffer, “The Most Important Election of Your Life (Is Not This Year),” TomDispatch, June 26, 2016, http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176157/tomgram%3A_john_feffer%2C_donald_trump_and_america_b/
  2. [2]Bill Black, “The Terrible Cost to Democrats and Our Nation of Ignoring Tom Frank’s Warnings,” Naked Capitalism, June 30, 2016, http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/06/bill-black-the-terrible-cost-to-democrats-and-our-nation-of-ignoring-tom-franks-warnings.html
  3. [3]Tracy Thompson, The New Mind of the South (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2013), p. 144
  4. [4]John Feffer, “The Most Important Election of Your Life (Is Not This Year),” TomDispatch, June 26, 2016, http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176157/tomgram%3A_john_feffer%2C_donald_trump_and_america_b/