Submitted by Alexandra Jones (not verified) on Mon, 2008-05-12 17:42.
Can working animals go on strike?
"Animal rights law and thinking...pays way too little attention to the flourishing, important, precious, long history of human and other critter interrelationship...very little honoring the working, playing, living relationships...rather humans are either protectors or violators and never really partners.."
Donna Haraway makes a lot of fascinating, thought-provoking points in this interview, and I wholeheartedly agree with her about animals being "other" in a true sense, not infantile versions of human beings, and I also cheered at the part where she takes apart the notion of animals granting "unconditional love" to human beings.
However, I think that in promoting the idea of humans as "companion species" in "partnership" with non-human animals, she is ignoring the real power imbalance that exists in human beings' "working, playing, living relationships" with other species. It is wonderful that she thinks of her own dogs as partners in this way, but nevertheless it is her choice to have a "working relationship" with the dogs in her life. The dogs who participate in the agility sport may do so willingly and even joyfully, however they do not have an equal say as to the terms of their "work." (Work is really a human idea anyway... when we talk about "working" animals we are really talking about animals we use in accomplishing OUR work, aren't we? )
In the example of the ethical ranchers she cites who are dog breeders as well as raising cattle, the disparity is even more stark. Surely if it were up to the cows, they would not choose to be shipped to a slaughterhouse, killed and eaten by their "companion" species.
We are, in fact, the ones with the power to decide the fates of non-human animals and even of entire species, and that is the reality we have to grapple with. While Haraway may be right to criticize the current discourse of animal rights as being too dualistic in seeing humans as protectors or violators, I think that her celebration of the "flourishing, important, precious, long history of human and other critter interrelationship" glosses over worlds of pain and misery inflicted on animals for the sole benefit of humans.
As for animal "husbandry" practices becoming a museum exhibit in the future, well... I don't think that the fact that human domination of other species has a long history is a convincing argument to keep it going any more than it would now be considered a convincing argument for preserving the "working relationship" between slave owners and their human slaves. That has a pretty long history too.
Can working animals go on strike?
"Animal rights law and thinking...pays way too little attention to the flourishing, important, precious, long history of human and other critter interrelationship...very little honoring the working, playing, living relationships...rather humans are either protectors or violators and never really partners.."
Donna Haraway makes a lot of fascinating, thought-provoking points in this interview, and I wholeheartedly agree with her about animals being "other" in a true sense, not infantile versions of human beings, and I also cheered at the part where she takes apart the notion of animals granting "unconditional love" to human beings.
However, I think that in promoting the idea of humans as "companion species" in "partnership" with non-human animals, she is ignoring the real power imbalance that exists in human beings' "working, playing, living relationships" with other species. It is wonderful that she thinks of her own dogs as partners in this way, but nevertheless it is her choice to have a "working relationship" with the dogs in her life. The dogs who participate in the agility sport may do so willingly and even joyfully, however they do not have an equal say as to the terms of their "work." (Work is really a human idea anyway... when we talk about "working" animals we are really talking about animals we use in accomplishing OUR work, aren't we? )
In the example of the ethical ranchers she cites who are dog breeders as well as raising cattle, the disparity is even more stark. Surely if it were up to the cows, they would not choose to be shipped to a slaughterhouse, killed and eaten by their "companion" species.
We are, in fact, the ones with the power to decide the fates of non-human animals and even of entire species, and that is the reality we have to grapple with. While Haraway may be right to criticize the current discourse of animal rights as being too dualistic in seeing humans as protectors or violators, I think that her celebration of the "flourishing, important, precious, long history of human and other critter interrelationship" glosses over worlds of pain and misery inflicted on animals for the sole benefit of humans.
As for animal "husbandry" practices becoming a museum exhibit in the future, well... I don't think that the fact that human domination of other species has a long history is a convincing argument to keep it going any more than it would now be considered a convincing argument for preserving the "working relationship" between slave owners and their human slaves. That has a pretty long history too.