From: ra-AT-alor.univ-montp3.fr (Ronald Creagh, Moderator, Research on Anarchism List)
Date: 31 Jan 1997 15:04:43 UTC   (11:04:43 AM in author's locale)
To: ra-l-AT-bred.univ-montp3.fr

Date: Thu, 30 Jan 1997 14:41:39 -0600 (CST)
>From: John Clark <clark-AT-beta.loyno.edu>

Harald's reply still seems to engage in the kind of guilt by association
that doesn't do justice to the arguments of animal rights advocates. I am
not, by the way, an animal rights theorist. I'm a critic of rights
theories in general, and have both agreements and disagreements with
animal rights arguments. I recently did a book on Elisee Reclus, one of
the great anarchist theorists, who advocated vegetarianism. My
assessment of his views on animals was that he made a good case against
mistreatment of animals but that this does not demonstrate the obligatory
nature of complete vegetarianism. My own view is that factory farming is
both ethically and ecologically unacceptable. I have fairly consistently
avoided factory farmed meat for almost ten years, but I am not a
perfectionist. I also do not consider a free-range chicken to be
"someone's child," except when I'm in a particularly surrealistic frame of
mind.
But as for:
> I don't think it is a coincidence
> that most of the promoters of "animal rights" comes out of this background,
> nor that this movement is especially strong in the US along with all kinds
> of escapist "new ageism". Neither that there are far more centres for
> mistreated animals in the US than for battered women and so on.
This is what I find unfair to the viewpoint being criticized. Are we to
conclude that animal rights advocates on the RA list should not state
their case, and do not deserve a reasoned reply because most other animal
rights advocates are from the middle class? Or because the animal rights
movement has support in areas in which the New Age movement also does? We
might also consider the fact that the movement against violence
against women also draws a disproportionate amount of its support from the
middle class. Does this invalidate it? By the way, Harald vastly
underestimates the accomplishments of the women's movement over the past
two decades if he believes that there is less concern here about violence
against women than there is about cruelty to animals.
@himsa,
John

TO SEND A MESSAGE TO EVERYONE write to RA-L-AT-bred.univ-montp3.fr.
TO UNSUBSCRIBE, WRITE TO : listserv-AT-bred.univ-montp3.fr
with the text SIGnoff RA-L (no subject nor signature).

Moderator/Moderador/Moderateur : Ronald Creagh
Co-Moderator : John P. Clark
e-mail : rcreagh-AT-alor.univ-montp3.fr
snail mail/correo ordinario/courrier ordinaire : Ronald Creagh, Universite
Paul Valery, B.P. 5043, 34032, Montpellier-Cedex, France.
fax : (33) 67 64 77 23