Powerful critique of the word animals (a word i am trying but struggling to replace) Derrida When one says animals, one has already started to not understand anything, and one has already started to enclose the animal into a cage ..and to say animal, to put them all into one category -- both the monkey and the ant -- is a very violent gesture. To put all living things that arent human into one category is first of all, a stupid gesture -- theoretically ridiculous -- and partakes in the very real violence that humans exercise towards animals. That leads to slaughterhouses, their industrial treatment, their consumption All this violence towards animals is engendered in this conceptual simplification, which allows one to say animals in general. I know Derrida has received a lot of bad press, but he is making a very important point here. Language is most certainly a vehicle for violence, words and concepts can either constrain or expand our imagination, thinking, empathetic faculties, and the words we use are therefore extremely important. Eating so-called bacon is easier than eating the (more accurately described) tortured corpse flesh of a richly sentient, emotionally and psychologically endowed, highly intelligent fellow being. https://youtube/watch?v=Ry49Jr0TFjk
Posted on: Sun, 21 Dec 2014 12:08:05 +0000
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