In March 2009, I wrote a blog entry about the speciesist nature of society as reflected in the national Irish media. Now, while this sort of thing is not a surprise and certainly not limited to Ireland - and I generally expect routine representations of speciesism in a deeply speciesist culture - now and then, a series of stories on Newstalk kick me in the butt to remind me about how bad things are.
This happened to me this morning listening to a programme called "Weekend Blend" presented by Orla Barry. First there was a whole section on travel writing - and, as ever with these items, talk about unusual and dodgy food crops up. What struck me, however, was the thoughtlessness of all the contributors about the notion of casually jetting around the globe in search of new experiences and sights. Barry - herself blasting off halfway around the world the next day - asked her two guests where they would go if economic restrictions didn't exist - she never thought, of course, to think of raising an environmental reason why someone may want to curb their globe trotting.
This was immediately followed be two "lighthearted animal stories" - the first about a captive octopus named Paul who apparently had correctly predicted the results of the World Cup football matches thus far. Despite a guest calling him "Paul" throughout the piece, he was also called "it" several times. Next up was the story of the US restaurant serving the flesh of a lion to celebrate Africa hosting the World Cup. According to reports, "animal rights campaigners" are infuriated by this menu item - I see no mention of the flesh or dairy the restaurant usually serves on a daily basis, so I assume these "animal rights campaigners" are not animal rights advocates after all. Barry ended the item by joking that she expects lion flesh will taste like "chicken."
Anyway - memo to self: "stop listening to sodding orthodox radio stations!"
19.6.10
16.6.10
Light of Love.
The Dublin discussion group (see here) has moved on from the issue of power to a consideration of love. Last week, the work of Erich Fromm was considered.
Fromm (1900-1980) is described as a humanistic philosopher, democratic socialist, psychoanalyst, and social psychologist. I have been familiar with some of his writings for a number of years because Fromm was a minor member of the so-called Frankfurt School (the video link I have included in this blog entry reveals Marx's influence on Fromm). Although members of the Frankfurt School famously blended together Marxist and Freudian themes, Erich Fromm was critical of Freud and accused him of being a misogynist unable to think outside of a patriarchal framework.
In The Art of Loving (first published in 1956), Fromm outlines four elements of love - care, responsibility, respect and knowledge. The third of these, respect, is bound to resonate in the mind of animal rightists:
(This quote contains some elements of the Frankfurt School's discussion of "instrumental rationality" - see pp. 6-7 here.)
Fromm (1900-1980) is described as a humanistic philosopher, democratic socialist, psychoanalyst, and social psychologist. I have been familiar with some of his writings for a number of years because Fromm was a minor member of the so-called Frankfurt School (the video link I have included in this blog entry reveals Marx's influence on Fromm). Although members of the Frankfurt School famously blended together Marxist and Freudian themes, Erich Fromm was critical of Freud and accused him of being a misogynist unable to think outside of a patriarchal framework.
In The Art of Loving (first published in 1956), Fromm outlines four elements of love - care, responsibility, respect and knowledge. The third of these, respect, is bound to resonate in the mind of animal rightists:
Responsibility could easily deteriorate into domination and possessiveness, were it not for a third component of love, respect. Respect is not fear and awe; it denotes, in accordance with the root of the word (respicere = to look at), the ability to see a person as he is, to be aware of his unique individuality. Respect means the concern that the other person should grow and unfold as he is. Respect, thus, implies the absence of exploitation. I want the loved person to grow and unfold for his own sake, and in his own ways, and not for the purpose of serving me. If I love the other person, I feel one with him or her, but with him as he is, not as I need him to be as an object for my use. (2000: 26.)
(This quote contains some elements of the Frankfurt School's discussion of "instrumental rationality" - see pp. 6-7 here.)
15.6.10
Podcast Number 10.
The first item of this podcast is a run-through of this blog entry, a report for Vegan Ireland about an Irish Animal Education Trust video on the use of artificial insemination in Ireland. I frame this video within the context of the concept of easygoing speciesism.
Vegan Ireland have a new page about the differences between vegetarianism and veganism which critically evaluates the commonly-held assumption that a vegetarian phase is both likely and helpful "on the road" to veganism.
I finish the podcast with a less than systematic account of Ariel Levy's 2005 book, Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture in the context of support in the animal advocacy movement for sexist campaigning.
LISTEN | MP3 | 24 minutes | English
Vegan Ireland have a new page about the differences between vegetarianism and veganism which critically evaluates the commonly-held assumption that a vegetarian phase is both likely and helpful "on the road" to veganism.
I finish the podcast with a less than systematic account of Ariel Levy's 2005 book, Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture in the context of support in the animal advocacy movement for sexist campaigning.
LISTEN | MP3 | 24 minutes | English
14.6.10
Easygoing Speciesism (Irish example)
Report prepared for Vegan Ireland.
In January 2010, RTE TV sent Ella McSweeney of their Ear to the Ground programme to the National Cattle Breeding Centre in Enfield, Co. Meath to investigate the use of artificial insemination in Ireland.
Explaining that creating the genetically perfect calf through artificial means has become the norm in Ireland, the show demonstrates the easygoing speciesism in society as presenter and artificial inseminator make crude and childish jokes throughout the piece.
The programme notes state that, “Ella follows the inseminator around farms in Ireland. She witnesses the cutting edge technology used to create genetically superior calves, and meets Ireland’s top breeding bulls, one who has fathered over 10,000 calves.”
As if to deliberately highlight the casual exploitative attitudes of a deeply speciesist society, McSweeney declares that she is going to see the “hardest working and hottest males in the business.” She is referring to the 400 “donor” bulls imprisoned in the breeding centre, 70 of whom were chained by their noses or locked into pens in the semen collection centre.
The chief executive of the breeding centre, Bernard Eivers, tells McSweeney that their aim is to increase profits gained from better and more efficient exploitation and getting “more use” out of the bulls. When we do see the tethered bulls up close, the speciesist production values of the show are reflected in the playing of a Barry White love song as McSweeney talks about the use of a bull called Rocky.
Centre manager Michael Bailey, 30 years at the job, shows off his semen collecting skills. This involves the use of a “teaser bull,” tethered to the wall for another to mount. While McSweeney jokes about bulls being “ready for action,” Bailey says the industry term is a bull who “is ready to pop.”
Speciesist views go into overdrive once the bull has ejaculated into an artificial vagina – McSweeney smirks about how very quick the whole event was, while Bailey talks about “successful jumps” and some bulls being “good producers.” McSweeney giggles that this bull has never had sex with a live cow, and the pair laugh about the artificial vagina being “what he wants” and “what he loves.”
Trying to recover some credibility from the juvenile journalism at the start of the programme, they move on to a laboratory scene and a description of the centre’s genomic programme, however they cannot resist a shot of a clock on the centre’s wall showing a cartoon bull copulating with a cow, ironically something the real bulls are never allowed to do. Perhaps that is a postmodern comment on the extent of the exploitation that goes on at the forced breeding centre?
We are then introduced to Violet Nevin, a female artificial inseminator [a person known as having “a bull in a bottle”] who reportedly travels the globe abusing cows. Nevin states that she “loves working with cows,” which seems to mean that she likes to push her hands, arms and instruments into cows’ anuses and vaginas.
The next scene involves Nevin and McSweeney abusing a cow, with the latter have a go at inserting her arm into the cow. McSweeney, making a crass gag about being a virgin at this sort of thing, is shown trying to locate the cow’s cervix, and the best Nevin can do is say with a sneer that it feel like a turkey’s neck. McSweeney even asks “how far in can I go.” After feeling the cow “tensing up,” this woman finally decides to take her hands out of another female – feminist theory not her bedtime reading non doubt.
This 9 minute video is an A-Z of speciesists norms and values, served up with laughter and mirth to ideologically reduce the truth of what is actually happening.
In January 2010, RTE TV sent Ella McSweeney of their Ear to the Ground programme to the National Cattle Breeding Centre in Enfield, Co. Meath to investigate the use of artificial insemination in Ireland.
Explaining that creating the genetically perfect calf through artificial means has become the norm in Ireland, the show demonstrates the easygoing speciesism in society as presenter and artificial inseminator make crude and childish jokes throughout the piece.
The programme notes state that, “Ella follows the inseminator around farms in Ireland. She witnesses the cutting edge technology used to create genetically superior calves, and meets Ireland’s top breeding bulls, one who has fathered over 10,000 calves.”
As if to deliberately highlight the casual exploitative attitudes of a deeply speciesist society, McSweeney declares that she is going to see the “hardest working and hottest males in the business.” She is referring to the 400 “donor” bulls imprisoned in the breeding centre, 70 of whom were chained by their noses or locked into pens in the semen collection centre.
The chief executive of the breeding centre, Bernard Eivers, tells McSweeney that their aim is to increase profits gained from better and more efficient exploitation and getting “more use” out of the bulls. When we do see the tethered bulls up close, the speciesist production values of the show are reflected in the playing of a Barry White love song as McSweeney talks about the use of a bull called Rocky.
Centre manager Michael Bailey, 30 years at the job, shows off his semen collecting skills. This involves the use of a “teaser bull,” tethered to the wall for another to mount. While McSweeney jokes about bulls being “ready for action,” Bailey says the industry term is a bull who “is ready to pop.”
Speciesist views go into overdrive once the bull has ejaculated into an artificial vagina – McSweeney smirks about how very quick the whole event was, while Bailey talks about “successful jumps” and some bulls being “good producers.” McSweeney giggles that this bull has never had sex with a live cow, and the pair laugh about the artificial vagina being “what he wants” and “what he loves.”
Trying to recover some credibility from the juvenile journalism at the start of the programme, they move on to a laboratory scene and a description of the centre’s genomic programme, however they cannot resist a shot of a clock on the centre’s wall showing a cartoon bull copulating with a cow, ironically something the real bulls are never allowed to do. Perhaps that is a postmodern comment on the extent of the exploitation that goes on at the forced breeding centre?
We are then introduced to Violet Nevin, a female artificial inseminator [a person known as having “a bull in a bottle”] who reportedly travels the globe abusing cows. Nevin states that she “loves working with cows,” which seems to mean that she likes to push her hands, arms and instruments into cows’ anuses and vaginas.
The next scene involves Nevin and McSweeney abusing a cow, with the latter have a go at inserting her arm into the cow. McSweeney, making a crass gag about being a virgin at this sort of thing, is shown trying to locate the cow’s cervix, and the best Nevin can do is say with a sneer that it feel like a turkey’s neck. McSweeney even asks “how far in can I go.” After feeling the cow “tensing up,” this woman finally decides to take her hands out of another female – feminist theory not her bedtime reading non doubt.
This 9 minute video is an A-Z of speciesists norms and values, served up with laughter and mirth to ideologically reduce the truth of what is actually happening.
8.6.10
On Human-Nonhuman Relations Podcast No. 9.
or #9 Dream.
This podcast is a version of the blog entry below, so all the references there are relevant here too.
This is the police/witness item I mention:-
Police officer (p). Did you get a look at the one in the car?
listen here.
+++
This podcast is a version of the blog entry below, so all the references there are relevant here too.
This is the police/witness item I mention:-
Police officer (p). Did you get a look at the one in the car?
Witness (w). I saw his face, yeah.
p. What sort of age was he?
w. About 45. He was wearing a…
p. And how tall?
w. Six foot one.
p. Six foot one. Hair?
w. Dark and curly. Is this going to take long? I’ve got to collect the kids from school.
p. Not much longer, no. What about his clothes?
w. He was a bit scruffy-looking, blue trousers, black…
p. Jeans?
w. Yeah.listen here.
+++
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