Easygoing Speciesism.

Do you recognise the speciesist here?

Do you see the animal welfarists too?

The Third On Human-Nonhuman Relations Podcast.

This 3rd podcast briefly mentions my last blog entry on "rituals of dominionism," looks at the social contructionist approach in sociology, and identifies the central role of the ideology of animal welfarism in Stephen Clark's "Devices of the Heathen" and in understanding its part in support of speciesism.


LISTEN | MP3 | 32 minutes | English


Main sources used for this podcast.

Berger, P.L. and Luckmann, T. (1966) The Social Construction of Reality, New York: Anchor.

Best, J. (1995) 'Debates about Constructionism' in E. Rubington and M.S. Weinberg (eds.) The Study of Social Problems, 5th ed, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Clark, S.R.L. (1984) The Moral Status of Animals, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Clark, S.R.L. (1991) 'Animals', in J. O. Urmson and J. Ree (eds). The Concise Encyclopedia of Western Philosophy and Philosophers, London and New York: Routledge.

Francione, G.L. (2000) Introduction to Animal Rights: Your Child or the Dog?, Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Miller, G. and Holstein, J.A. (1993) 'Reconsidering social constructionism', in J.A. Holstein and G. Miller (eds.), Reconsidering Social Constructionism: Debates in Social Problems Theory, New York: Aldine De Gruyer.

Munro, L. (1998) 'Framing Cruelty: The construction of duck shooting as a social problem', Society and Animals, Vol 5(2).

Newman, D.M. (1995) Sociology: Exploring the Architecture of Everyday Life, Thousands Oaks, CA: Pine Forge.

Scarce, R. (1998) 'Socially constructing Pacific salmon', Society and Animals, vol 5(2) - www. psyeta.org/sa/ sa5.2/scarce.html

Another Ritual of Dominionism Exposed by Animal Equality.

For several years, I have been chronicling various "rituals of dominionism," Jim Mason's concept for social rituals in which human superiority is celebrated by the killing and degrading of "lesser-than" nonhuman animals.  Mason first introduced the concept in his excellent book, An Unnatural Order.

Sociologically, rituals of dominionism play an important role in socialisation processes since they typically involve both adults and children, the latter learning that human “mastery” over nonhuman animals is both normal and legitimate (see a contextualisation of the importance of social ritual and rituals of dominionism HERE.)

A hitherto hidden ritual of dominionism has been uncovered by the Spanish animal advocacy group, Animal Equality, when they recently filmed the killing of a bull with spears.  Their report follows, written by spokesperson Jose Valle.   

Today I was in Tordesillas, a small town south of Madrid, with my colleagues from Animal Equality for the second year running. Last year we flew over the town with a paraglider to demand respect for animals and to film the death of the bull Valenton. Thanks to the recording then, various news sources showed society images of the last moments of Valenton's life and the injustice that he was a victim of.

This year we returned. On this occasion the victim was Moscatel. After trying to escape, badly wounded, via the road to the point where he nearly reached the motorway (the traces of blood he left in his attempt to flee are still visible on the concrete), Moscatel was stabbed with a spear in a ditch. He was still on his feet when we arrived, exhausted from running, and practically at his side. He was looking around him bewilderedly, with a spear stuck in his side. Blood bubbled up copiously from the open wound.

A crowd armed with spears surrounded him with the firm intention to kill him right there in the ditch. A young boy tried in vain to pull out the spear that was wedged in his side, aggravating his wound even more. A few minutes later, when Moscatel was already on his knees, almost exhausted, two young boys managed to pull out the spear. Moscatel reacted by getting up in a last desperate attempt to fight for his life, trying to charge at his attackers, some of them mounted on horses, also victims of this festival.

His attempt ended with him on the ground once more. Defenceless and incapable of getting up again, a man approached him from behind armed with a knife and tried to cut through his spinal cord. It took up to five minutes stabbing repeatedly with the knife – as can be seen in the video we recorded. Finally, they decided to cover him with a canvas sheet before he died due to the grotesqueness of the situation, even in the eyes of his attackers. While some tried to prevent anyone seeing, I got closer to the young boy that was standing on his head, on his left horn to prevent him getting up while others stabbed the knife in determinedly. I saw him massacred, still alive and in agony while others climbed on his back to claim victory. I managed to touch him before they covered him up totally and wished him to feel no more of his torment… deeply ashamed to belong to the same species as these rabid people who had carried this out. In a few moments, the blue cover became stained red with blood while his attackers argued over who had killed him.

Thanks to this footage, various news sources are broadcasting the images right now; in some such as Antena 3 they have interviewed my friend and fellow activist Javier. The attackers covered the victim of their massacre and tried to hide their crime from society by preventing the presence of cameras. Animal Equality was there for the second year running, defending animals and giving visibility to this injustice, giving a voice to those who others are trying to silence, in order to advance towards full recognition and respect of their interests.

Remember, that the death of Moscatel, equal to that of Valenton last year, is as injust as the deaths of all the nameless animals that die in slaughterhouses or laboratories. Please, don't participate in animal exploitation; reject all forms of animal use, because each one has its victims.

Since Animal Equality is not an animal welfare group, they make no calls for this ritual to be made more "humane."  Instead, they emphasise that this is one form of animal use in many involving killing and suffering.  Some have attempted to defend this ritual, describing it as a "tradition" and by pointing out that "food animals" probably suffer more than the bull did.

Jose told me that his group accepts that a chicken exploited over 13 months, and animals used in the dairy industry, probably do suffer more: this bull, after all, had lived in a field all his life until used in this dominionist event.

It is important that single events like this are generalised in the context of society’s use of animals.  I'm glad that Animal Equality take issues like this to make the wider claim that humans have no right to use animals as a general matter.

The Towering Interminable.

It is that time of year again...

North Americans are not going to let us forget "9/11", that's for sure. I have just experienced another day in Europe where "9/11" was a major news item and the subject of TV documentaries. We hear, again, that all the names have been read out in New York and this is supposed to be big news for us. After all, these were white, middle-class, deaths, and these are the ones that count, it is implied.

I remember when critical criminologist Nils Christie came to Bangor University in North Wales a year or so after "9/11". He asked the students to identify the very worst thing that had happened in 2001 - a couple of students mentioned "9/11". When he asked the same question about September 2001, then "9/11" was mentioned again, and when Christie asked about September 11th, 2001, then there was no doubt: the very worst thing that happened on that date was an attack on the twin towers. Nils Christie shocked a few students by suggesting that wasn't the case.

Of course it wasn't the case. About 30,000 people died on "9/11" of starvation-related issues, as they have every single day from "9/12" to the present date. Not white, middle-class capitalist, though - sorry - these are poor and black, so that's okay: we do not write symphonies for them and we do not read out their names year on year.

I wrote the following "A few days after ‘September 11th’ 2001."


There has been an atrocity committed. Perhaps many thousands of people have been killed, and millions psychologically harmed in the United States of America.

We in Britain have been asked (asked mind, because we are ‘free’ and ‘democratic’) to observe a minute of silence for the victims of this particular atrocity. What interests me, notwithstanding the genuine terror of what occurred in North America, is why this atrocity has been declared so important. It is not the biggest by any means - and it is not even the latest - so why this one?

As I have been asked to observe a minute’s silence for these victims, can I claim another minute for other victims of needless slaughter and harm?

What about the estimated one to two million women and small children sold into sexual slavery every year? No plane has crashed into a rich, comfortable, skyscraper office in this case, true; but imagine the terror of having to “service” several men each day when you are an eight year old child. Imagine being beaten if you do not submit to being penetrated by adult strangers several times a day. So, a minute’s silence for them then, yes?

I cannot imagine how frightened you would have to be to deliberately throw yourself from a burning building: how terror-filled is that? By the same token, I cannot imagine starving to death as my parents look on helpless to help me. This happens every few seconds somewhere in the world (in ‘unfree’ and ‘undemocratic’ places one assumes). Maybe a minute’s silence for them? But wait, this atrocity continues on a daily basis - this one has not physically stopped - two minutes then?

What can it feel like to be locked into a form of transport and forcefully driven to your death. It is hard to imagine the feeling of fear and terror. Being forced into a situation against your wishes is obviously a horrible and terrifying thing: and being killed in someone’s “act of war” is not a consolation I should say. Yet, in the “war against cancer” and “the war against AIDS”, millions of unwilling victims are forcefully transported to their deaths in laboratories: while further billions (about 45 billion every year in fact) are transported to their deaths because others like to eat their bodies. Perhaps a minute’s silence?

But wait, ‘free’ and ‘democratic’ North America kills about three hundred of these particular terrified victims every SECOND and in Britian, ‘we’ kill about 26 per second: how can we accommodate our minute’s silence, when another and another and another is required long before the first has even begun?

I just cannot figure out when all these silences will end - but I also cannot figure out the grounds for starting with the victims of Tuesday’s atrocity. In atrocious circles, Tuesday is way gone.

The Second On Human-Nonhuman Relations Podcast

In my second podcast, I have used David Nibert's Animal Rights, Human Rights: Entanglements of Oppression and Liberation as main text.  I explain that, sociologically, "speciesism" is an ideology and not just an individually-held prejudice.  As such, this ideology - which is the main thing animal rights advocates must tear down - is transmitted generationally through processes of socialisation.  Most human beings thoroughly internalise the norms and values of this ideology, explaining why they say what they say about human-nonhuman relations, why they act as they do, and why we need to achieve cultural change if we are substantially to help nonhuman animals.

I also present my own "take" on the dispute between Professor Gary Francione and Dr. Steve Best, concluding that I support Francione's position while disagreeing with some aspects of it, and explaining why I feel Best's position is both wrong and tactically naive from the point of view of future social change.

LISTEN | MP3 | 25 minutes | English.