One more try, Pro-anthropocentric backlash.

So, last night I made this short post on the idea of a pro-anthropocentric backlash. I think this is a perfect example of the downfalls of blogging. Articulating something off the top of your head, doing it very quickly right before bed, while I am also chatting with my wife. And so, Joshua Miller (in the comments of that post) and Mike Burns make some very good points. They are well taken. So, let me try this again.

First, the good news. When I first started working on animals, not only were there very few critical animal scholars, but in general anthropocentrism was the reigning ideology. While there were plenty of people who would say they were oppose to humanism, but it certainly was a very strongly anthropocentric humanism. But these days, every time I turn around I run into someone who is critiquing anthropocentrism. And of course, there are all sorts of different oppositions, and many of us disagree with each other. Still, I feel that the anti-anthro crowd is on a rising tide. We are forcing people to answer our positions, getting more institutional support, convincing people, etc. This is all good news.

And I would say this is also part of a movement. I said it is always cutting edge to be opposed to the cutting edge. Hipster logic, but still true. And being part of the cutting edge matters. It attracts attention, gets people talking, etc. This is not to say that people do not legitimately believe their positions.

Second, I agree with Mike Burns that there really is nothing new about this anthropocentrism (I can't speak to Meillassoux’s position, Harman's book is having to wait until winter break). However, because anthropocentrism was the default before, the anti-anthropocentrism crowd is forcing the pro-anthro crowd to articulate their position and defend their viewpoints. Hell, the very fact that I can talk about a pro-anthropocentric crowd is a change in the ground from when anthropocentrism was the default position that needed no overt adherents. So, maybe I don't mean backlash, as much as the rising pro-anthropocentric response.

My hope wasn't to create "a weird kind of pre-ad hominem", but I certainly understand why my post came across that way. Rather, I want to point out that the lay of the land is changing.

The pro-anthropocentric backlash

I haven't read the interview yet (I plan to), but I want to highlight Graham Harman's post on Andrian Johnston's interview, here.

I've been telling people for the past few months that I feel the anti-anthro crowd, in all various and contradictory forms, is gaining ground within the academy. And because the cutting edge is always to be opposed to whatever the cutting edge is, I assume to see a pro-anthro backlash. I'm not blaming Johnston of any of this. I've never meet him, and everyone I know who knows him says he is a great guy and a sincere intellectual. However, I really do assume that the pro-humanism or pro-anthropocentrism conference is on the horizon. The special issue for anthropocentrism will be coming out in journals soon, In Defense of Humans or whatever will be a title forthcoming book. You know it's coming.

A Post of Links

I have waited too long to do this one, which means that I will inevitably miss far more than I normally do. There is a lot of cool and interesting things that have happened since I did the last one, and if I forget to add something you did, it is not at all an indication of the importance I give to your work. With that said...

HJM has an essay up at 7S webzine on drinking.

Jason Wirth reviews Devin Shaw's book on Schelling. Hopefully one day his book will get into paperback so the rest of us will need to read it.

Over at Critical Legal Thinking is an interesting post on Sovereignty & its Ground. From the beginning: "Metaphysics was meant to have died a long time ago, to have been awarded an esteemed position in the philosophical cannon but ushered off the stage of world-history with the King’s head. But it is still to be found lurking persistently in the most public of places, hiding in the broad daylight of everyday speech and accepted ideas, in court rooms and the great offices of State."

I suggest this from Harman, and this follow up from Peter Gratton. Here is the key quotation from Harman:

The other strategy that I disagree with is the Leiteresque strategy of saying that analytic philosophy doesn’t exist, which is kind of like Darth Vader saying that “the Empire doesn’t exist.” It’s simply an attempt to deny that there is any rebellion, and to try to dismiss the rebellion as nothing but a low-quality version of something the Empire already does better. In other words, “continental philosophy done in continental departments is crap, and you need to go to study with analytic philosophers who happen to work on Heidegger, Hegel, Nietzsche, etc.”

Here are the videos of the CUNY Speculative Realism talks.

Jason Read has an interesting (rather old, now) post on Contagion.

Speaking of Jason Read, here is him doing a teach-in at Occupy Main.

Speaking of the occupation, here are some other posts.

Here is a collection of links put together by MLA. I'm not going to repeat any of those links, so go read it.

Ben Woodard has an interesting and useful post on OWS over here. Different than a lot of other stuff being said, worth reading.

Sometimes I feel I should be writing on the Occupation, but I don't have a lot new or interesting to say. Right now, the occupation is something to root for, support, participate in. And at some point, I am sure I will theorize more about it. But not right now.

I don't have anything really interesting to share about this, but here is an article that argues that Utilitarians have some sort of sociopath tendencies.

Lastly, here is your safety tip reminder of the day. Figure out some basic cloud security and do it.

Tapes 'n Tapes with Badaboom. I can't seem to stop listening.

RIP Derrick Bell

I think we have all heard that Steve Jobs passed away yesterday, but significantly less attention has been directed to the passing away of Derrick Bell. I first ran across Bell's work when I was a freshman in high school (in debate, naturally). As a 14 year old white liberal, Bell's work was breathtaking. Damning, intriguing, controversial, and moving all at once. Long before I heard of Foucault or read a book of Marx's, I learned about the central reality of power from the Critical Race Theory file I had. I never developed more than a debater's knowledge of Bell's personal work, but he started me along a path that me read and engage materials relating to racism, domination, power, privilege, colonialism, intersectionality, multidimensionality, different forms of academic expression, etc. I am sure I am among one of the least affected by his work and life, and I still consider myself profoundly changed from an early exposure to critical race theory and the work of Derrick Bell.

Forms of Life Conference CFP

Forms of Life: Literature, Politics, Aesthetics

The Department of Comparative Literature

Binghamton University

March 2^nd-3^rd 2012

What comprises the matrix within which a given language has meaning? How is meaning constructed and how is it operative across social, cultural, and linguistic impasses? How is conflict and antagonism orchestrated both across and within disparate forms of life? To interrogate the emergence of sense as well as the conflicts that arise as a result of making sense, we welcome submissions that theorize the concerns outlined above with a particular eye toward their theorization as forms of life. In this way, we seek submissions that span disciplinary boundaries and topics, broadly speaking, related to literature, linguistics, politics, alternative and utopian imaginaries, aesthetics, and tactics of resistance.

The form of life, but even more broadly, the theorization of sense and meaning, have historically been thought and inhabited in and through a variety of frameworks and styles of thought. Linguistically, forms of life have been theorized as the condition of possibility for sense itself. Ecologically, thinking the operation and function of alternative forms of life offer a means of thinking against and beyond anthropocentrism. Forms of life have been theorized in relation to global biopolitical regimes and concomitant forms of resistance. The very practices of making sense and meaning come to be interrogated within and across a variety of disciplines, often at the expense of disciplining knowledge itself. The question of forms of life, but even more broadly, the question of making sense, is one around which the work of many scholars has revolved: Ludwig Wittgenstein on language games, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri’s work on the multitude, Giorgio Agamben on bare life, Chantal Mouffe on liberal democratic projects, Michel Foucault on biopolitics and securitization, Sylvia Federici on feminism and a politics of the commons. We also see these questions to stand in relation to Jasbir Puar’s work on terrorism and homonationalism, Deleuze and Guattari’s work on signification and assemblage, and Judith Butler’s work on the politics of gender and frames of war. While this is by no means an exhaustive theoretical list, it does hint at the depth of the theme our conference seeks to interrogate.

In keeping with the interdisciplinary emphasis of Binghamton University’s Department of Comparative Literature, we seek work that engages in the conjunction of multiple frames of epistemological inquiry, from fields including, but not limited to: critical theory, translation, postcolonial studies, decolonial studies, queer and gender studies, psychoanalytic theory, critical animal studies, ethnic studies, urban studies, science and technology studies, media and visual culture studies, continental philosophy, and historiography.

Workers, writers, and thinkers of all different disciplinary, inter-disciplinary, and non-disciplinary affiliations are welcome, whether academically affiliated or not. Submissions may be textual, performative, and/or visual. Please submit an abstract of approximately 200 words to Matt Applegate at formoflife2012@gmail.com by December 15th, 2011.

Interview with David Graeber about Occupy Wall Street

Here. What makes this interesting is first of all, it is simply a smart interview. But more importantly, I have been impressed by the ways that the Occupy Wall Street movement is beginning to garner some serious attention by more mainstream lefty policy wonkish blogs. I am curious what will ultimately come of this cross-pollination. Maybe nothing. However, I really am interested and committed to things like good policy. But I am also a radical, and I tend to find there is a natural tension between those two poles. I think that ultimately the liberal desire to turn radical movements into simple policy disagreements will probably mean that long-term the radical prospects of the Occupy Wall Street movement will be unthinkable for these blogs, but it is still interesting.

A Post of Links

First up is an argument between John Sanbonmatsu and Derrick Jensen on the issues of localvorism. First, Sanbonmatsu reviews Keith's The Vegetarian Myth. Jensen responds here, and finally Sanbonmatsu responds here. All of the posts here are long, sustained, and worth reading. I hope to make a longer post about these exchanges later. Right now I just want to add a note about the issues of plants that becomes a major bone (fiber?) of contention. The idea that plants are fully sentient beings is an increasingly popular opinion, but continues to not really be backed up by science. I want to thank Sanbonmatsu for doing some of the legwork on this issue. What we have is the gut feeling of a lead researcher, and a whole bunch of people who want an excuse to not change their behavior. What we don't have is any sort of major scientific work to back up this claim of plant sentience. I think this is something where Matt Calarco's ethical agnosticism is pretty useful. We need to be open to the changes here. But being open doesn't mean automatically accepting, either. And as I have said before, even if comes that plants are sentient, I find it highly doubtful that will change the need for vegetarianism or veganism. It will certainly complicate things, and will shift our ethical relations. However, just because it is impossible to live your life without violence, doesn't mean you get to be indiscriminately violent. We might as well say that the logical conclusion of plant sentience is cannibalism as we could say that plant sentience would mean flesh eating. Put simply, the radical ethical implications of plant sentience is far from being thought out by those who advocate it as an excuse for eating animal flesh.

The phlyo jobs info updated site is really moving at a fast clip. I was just telling someone I felt there were more TT jobs posting for continental philosophy this year. Like, at least three of them.

Clare O’Farrell has an excellent post on Foucault, scientific knowledge, and climate change. Issues of climate change are frequently forcing us to decide how we relate to scientific knowledge and authority, slow violence, and our subjectivity in relationship to the environment.

Speaking of slow violence, I missed this interview (now almost a month old) with Rob Nixon about slow violence. I agree with Nixon that part of the problem is basically an aesthetic one (aesthetics here meant in the political sense that Ranciere uses the term, one of the partition of the sensible). Slow violence covers so many things: ecological devastation, poverty, the destruction of social institutions and public works, etc. In a way this is what the Zapatistas meant every time they claimed that before they fired the first shot, they were already at war. Or likewise, whenever Ta-Nehisi Coates argues that the civil war wasn't an interruption of peace, but merely the war becoming real for white bodies as well as black bodies.

It seems there is a recent study that argues that whenever slaughterhouse work goes up in a community, so does the crime rate. The study controlled for other sorts of boring and repetitive jobs. Clearly, there needs to be further studies before one can make much use of this, but it is a fascinating find. (h/t Eccentric Vegan).

The Wall Street Journal had a recent op-ed against the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, and how the AETA "has emerged as a central example of how Congress has eroded the legal concept of mens rea, which is Latin for "guilty mind"—a long-held protection that says a defendant must know they've done something wrong to be found guilty of it."

The Rosebuds have a new album out. A solid, mellow, and spooky album. And because we are about animals here, I present "The Second Bird of Paradise"