This blog is banned for hate speech

I was talking to the debate coach at a certain Mass. public school, and she informed me that my blog is banned by her school's internet for 'hate speech'. I understand that such internet censoring software is relatively crude and oversensitive. So, I wouldn't be surprised if this blog was banned for obscenity or whatever. But hate speech? I've been trying to figure that one out all day.

What does Critical Animal Studies have to offer?

The very short answer is obvious: A lot.

As I am writing this paper on CAS and queer theory, I keep thinking about this. My paper is very much about how certain aspects of queer theory help us think through certain issues in CAS. Queer theory does more than simply make visible an abject subject (though it certainly would do enough if it was all that it did), it also provides insights, tools, and methodologies for other fields of research and inquiry. So, I am trying to think through some of the things that CAS can offer to other lines of inquiry, besides simply bringing forth and giving weight to a repressed subject (that of course never being a 'simple task'). For example, I think CAS has allowed me to think through the questions of the biopolitical. The many problems I have with Agamben aside, I think he gets right that the biopolitical is rooted in an anthropological machine. Critical animal studies gives us tools for understanding that anthropological machine, and hopefully tools for dismantling it, as well. Moreover, CAS has given me the ability to understand the central importance of the issue of opacity. I think I have often talked about how wonderful I think Glissant's book, The Poetics of Relation, is. One of the major themes in the book is the political affirmation of opacity. CAS gives us ways to begin to think of ethics and politics with beings who obviously maintain their opacity.

There are many other areas (I am pretty tired right now), but I think we will shortly be seeing more and more research projects that uses CAS to think through and extend projects in other fields, at the same time those fields will continue to influence critical animal studies.

A Post of Links

There is a new issue of the Journal of Critical Animal Studies out. It includes a review by Adam of HEALTH has a review of the film To Love or Kill: Man vs Animal. HJM of Prodigies and Monsters has a review of Carol Adams' The Sexual Politics of Meat. And Stephanie Jenkins has a review of Nussbaum's The Frontiers of Justice. There is also all sorts of other interesting stuff in the issue, go and read.

Over at New APPS is an important post on Gender and Philosophy Book Series. It's really bad, and deserves attention.

There is also an excellent and riveting interview with Ladelle McWhorter. I have enjoyed her books on Foucault, and I saw her speak at the PhiloSophia conference. An amazing and generous scholar.

Carol Adams brings our attention to some shady practices by Amazon and print-on-demand books. I had no idea.

Karl Steel (of In the Middle) new book: How to Make a Human: Animals and Violence in the Middle Ages, is finally out. I'm looking forward to reading it.


Lastly, I am not really a huge Wilco fan. I find them a fine, usually solid band. But not one of the most amazing bands of all time, as so many others find them. Still, when I saw their new album was on NPR's First Listen, I decided to listen to it. I was blown away. It is like the new album is as good as all the hype they have gotten over the years. Anyway, our music for today comes from that album.

Would you like to be born knowing you would be murdered?

In the recent Kathy Rudy post against veganism, there are lots of issues I would like to address. But most of them are of a factual nature, and not as terribly interesting to respond to point-by-point (however, if you have any particular questions, let me know). I do, however, want to address and think through one point.

At one point in her post, Rudy argues:

The question of killing gets more complex, but if you could have a good life on pasture for many years and enjoyed the gifts of the world, only to be killed as you reached middle age, would you choose that? Or would you choose no life at all to begin with?

Before we get to these questions that Rudy raises, I want to address this absurdity that any animal, even those who live on family farms as opposed to factory farms, reach middle age. I know that historically, before cows were fed on corn in the US but were raised on grass, they were usually slaughtered between 5-7 years of age (except breeder cows and cows used for milk). Now, the average lifespan of a cow not killed is about 20-25 years. The oldest cow recorded lived to somewhere in her mid-40s. To compare to humans, based on the life expectancy in the US, it would be as if you were slaughtered at the age of 19 and a half. Still a teenager, if just barely. But far, far away from middle-age. And while this is talking about the average age that cows were killed in the United States from about the mid-19th century and before, it doesn't necessarily talk about the practices of family farms here currently. I will say that I know a lot of family farmers, and I don't know any that let their animals live into middle-age. The chickens on polyface farms, for example, are allowed to live 42 days.
So, if Rudy's question was reflecting reality, it would be something like this: If you could have a life that includes being ripped away from your family, friends, and children on a whim; if you could have a life that included castration, partial removal of other parts of your body, potentially being branded; if you could have that life and know you will be slaughtered from childhood to late adolescence, would you take it? Rather than having no life at all? Because that is the question that Rudy should be asking. And this is from the conditions from some of the better farms for animals. This is as good as animal production gets. And that is why something like veganism remains essential.

But let us return to Rudy's original question, again. What if we were to get things really a lot better for animals. What if we allowed animals to live to middle age, and what if we didn't engage in so much torture and obvious disavowal of animal sociality, would that be okay? First, let's bracket that we tend to always go back to the worse way to treat beings we plan on eating. Let us pretend this fiction is possible: Would you choose that life as opposed to no life at all? Would you choose to bring a child into this world knowing they will be slaughtered after living only half their life? I don't have answers, but I am seriously curious.

High school debaters talking about animal rights

The current Lincoln-Douglas debate topic for Sept-Oct is "Resolved: Justice requires the recognition of animal rights"

That means thousands (okay, maybe only hundreds, but my guess is thousands) of High Schoolers will be spending two months discussing the ethics and effects of animal rights. If you have any questions about what this means, ask me in comments. However, if any of you philosophers, theorists, or simply animal rights activists know any school debate teams, now is a time to reach out and help.

Also, any of you with blogs (or if you want to post on my blog) short entries on the idea of the topic justice requires recognition of animal rights would be welcomed, as well.

Just thought I should put this out there. Sorry I am behind on bringing this up, but for whatever reason I didn't know about this until today.

A micro-picture of what is wrong with out health system

So, my wife has been sick, and she was kinda worried it could be strep, so we took her took a local medstop yesterday. She went in, got tested. It wasn't strep, instead this is what was written on her Patient Education Form:

VIRAL PHARYNGITIS (Sore Throat)
Your throat pain is due to an infection called 'Viral Pharyngitis', commonly known as 'Sore Throat'. This is a contagious illness. It is spread through the air by coughing, kissing, or by touching others after touching your mouth or nose. Symptoms include throat pain worse with swallowing, aching all over, headache and fever. This illness does not require treatment with an antibiotic. [Emphasis added]

So, the doctor gave her two prescriptions, one of which was for Amoxicillin (an antibiotic). Why? No real reason. It won't treat the sickness. It merely adds to the costs of health care in this country. If taken, it stands the chance of creating antibiotic resistant bacteria. It will certainly decrease the taker's antibiotic effectiveness for the next six months. And, there is also the slim chance of a major health consequences.

Why do I write about this? Because when we talk about the health care system, we usually are talking about the major actors: insurance companies, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, and the various governmental agencies and laws. And all of those are tied in together, but we also need to start changing the way that cost-benefit analysis of individual doctors. On some level we can say this requires patient knowledge (knowledge to know when to ignore a prescription), but that is obviously unrealistic. Anyway, this is another example that we have two problems with our health care system. One is that we are usually underinsured, and underprotected. The other is that people who are insured are frequently given too much care. If you want to know more, read Jonathan Cohn's Sick as a good place to start.

A Post of Links

Haven't done one of these in a while. I feel behind. Remember, share anything with me you think I may be missing. Self-promotion is always encouraged.

CK has a post up about cooking shows, and the meat that is featured in them. I highly suggest going and reading it. Basically, he sums up my own ability to dissociate myself from the flesh in cooking shows that I cannot do in the case of the flesh of the grocery store. Perhaps an interesting extension of this would be to figure out why there are times I cannot keep that dissociation going with even a cooking show.

Levi's book, The Democracy of Objects, is finally out (at least the html version). Check it out.

Over the summer, HJM of Prodigies and Monsters got an article published in Rhizomes entitled, "The Becoming-Woman of the Young-Girls:Revisiting Riot Grrrl, Rethinking Girlhood." I think this article continues HJM's trademark ability to combine complex political and identity theory (in this case, particularly the work of French anarcho-communist collective Tiqqun) with the lived theory of punks, queers, misfits, outcasts, artists, monsters, and everyday existence. In other words, go read it.

Adam has a long interview/post up at his blog on trying to rethink vegan praxis. I hope to write some thoughts on it in the future, but until then you should go check it out.

APS has an excellent post on academic translations.

Speaking of monsters (and aren't we always speaking of that?), over at Pop Matters is a short article on our cultural obsession with vampires, zombies, and viruses. (h/t This Cage is Worms)

Jean Kazez has an interesting post on the ethics of lying and misleading people in order to get them to act in ethical ways. It is worth reading.

Over at Kdebate is an interview with Bill Spanos on policy debate the activity, but also on the very existence of policy debate in our political reality. Worth reading even if you don't engage with academic policy debate. And of course, if you do debate, you have to read it. Mandatory.

Did you know they found new fossils that changes a lot of what we believe about humans, ancestry, and all of that? Yeah? Cool. Paleontology basically continues to disturb the fundamental and existential uniqueness of homo sapiens.

This post from David Graeber is worth reading. This is on his theory about the invention of money, and it is really smart.

Lastly, Kathy Rudy (promoting her new book Loving Animals [which continues to believe we can eat those we love]) has made a post on the Univ. of Minnesota's Press blog. I am planning a longer response later, but Carol Adams and Erik Marcus already have responses up.

Wild Flag, a new band including ex-members of the bands Sleater-Kinney, Helium and The Minders, has their first single out. Not only is a great song, but I am a big fan of the music video.