Speciesist ideology structures the way we see reality, including the way we view other animals and our relationship to them.

Social reality is constructed through our social interactions with others. What this means is that we learn how to perceive and assign meanings to things through our social interactions with others. The way we perceive, interpret and define things shape social reality.

The ideology of speciesism

There are different ways of looking at speciesism. It can be viewed as an individually held prejudice, an individual action (discrimination) or a system of oppression. It can also be seen as an ideology that works on a much more fundamental level to create what we see as reality. Sociologist David Nibert describes speciesism as a system of shared beliefs that give rise to and reinforce prejudice and discrimination against nonhuman animals. A central part of his argument is that “humans tend to disperse, eliminate, or exploit a group they perceive to be unlike themselves when it is in their economic interests to do so.” Unequal power leads to oppression, and ideologies such as speciesism help condition all members of society, including members of the oppressed, to see this as normal and legitimate.

In Nibert’s view, we can only adequately understand the causes and consequences of speciesism by viewing it as an ideology that exists as part of a cycle of oppression. According to him, “oppressive treatment of entire groups is a systemic phenomenon, not reducible to individualistic explanations such as prejudice or innate tendencies towards violence.” He also argues that the roots of the cycle are in the pursuit of self-interest, and therefore devaluation can be reduced “when oppression of a devalued group no longer serves the interests of the oppressors. Such is the case, for example, of the gray wolf in the United States. Humans waged upon the wolves a ‘relentless war’ with ‘rifles, traps, and poisons for more than three hundred years.’ Today, human friends of the wolves, and their many supporters among the general public who no longer perceive the wolf as an economic threat, are nurturing their return in several western states.”

Nibert calls ideological conditioning an “essential requirement for oppressive social arrangements. Oppression requires rationalization and legitimation; that is, it must appear as the right thing to do, both to the oppressing group and in the eyes of others. A set of ideas that devalues an entire group – an ideology, such as racism, sexism, or speciesism – thus is socially constructed… Over time, these socially constructed ideas will come to be accepted as real and true, and the ‘lower’ or ‘special’ position of the oppressed group will be viewed as the natural order of things.”

(the preceding is from Animal Rights/Human Rights, chapter one, “Towards a Sociological Analysis of Animal Oppression,” pp. 13-14)

The following passages are from chapter six, “The Social Construction of Speciesist Reality” in Animal Rights/Human Rights, pp. 197-220.

The inconsistent ideas about, and treatment of, devalued humans and other animals are not manifestations of a natural human tendency toward malevolent dissonance. Indeed, humans have a great capacity for caring and empathy, for “equality” and “fraternity.” But that capacity is compromised and neutralized by economic, political, and belief systems that glorify private wealth and promote egotism. Thus, the “dilemma” arises from the contrasts between what we can be and profess to be and what we actually are… Inconsistencies, paradoxes, and contradictions are inevitable, and cultivated, in societies such as the United States that strive for “civilization” while continuing to build great wealth and privilege for some upon a deep and extensive foundation of exploitation and oppression of “others.”

Ethnocentrism/anthropocentrism is essential to this process. If the masses are taught to discount the oppressed as ‘foreign’, ‘alien’, ‘uncivilized,’ ‘unclean,’ ‘stupid,’ ‘inferior,’ and so on, they become socially distanced from the devalued others, thus precluding both opportunities and tendencies for empathetic response. Many humans who are deeply situated in the status quo, through indoctrination, social position, and self-interest, even express indignation at any suggestion that “others,” particularly other animals, are oppressed.”

Ambivalence about other animals has roots deep in human history, and such cultural conditioning has been around a long time. Living in close cohabitation with other animals and observing their families and social relations likely engendered in many humans a substantial level of sensitivity, understanding, and respect. As human animals cultivated the ability to capture and kill other animals, such treatment of other animals spurred an anxiousness in humans, an uneasiness that found its way into religious belief and ritual. James Serpell notes:

The idea that animals are fully conscious beings who possess spiritual powers is widespread among hunting and gathering societies. Not surprisingly, it also appears to engender considerable anxiety and guilt about killing animals for food. Most of these cultures engage in complex rituals and taboos designed either to relieve the guilt arising from hunting or to honor the spirits of the deceased animals.

Examples of several such beliefs are taken from the writings of R.A.Marchant:

Eskimos also believed that because seals and whales lived in the sea they were unable to drink and so suffered from a continual and intolerable thirst. They therefore allowed themselves to be caught, knowing that the Eskimos would end their agony by giving them an offering of fresh water. If a hunter neglected to put this water into the mouth of his victim, the other seals or whales would know of his treachery and would never again allow themselves to be caught by him.

Polar bears were envious of [human] possessions, and so their skins had to be hung up in the house alongside the tools they coveted – knives and bow drills if the animal was male and needles and skin scrapers for a female. The soul of the animal stayed in the skin until it was driven out in a special ceremony four or five days later. It then departed, taking with it the spirits of the proffered tools.

Thus, some ideologies have justified and naturalized the killing of other animals by making such killing a sacred activity, one that transcends other mundane, daily activities, and, thus, more acceptable. The sacred nature of an activity, however, can be eroded if the once-disturbing activity becomes a routine and ordinary aspect of day-to-day existence, particularly as the numbers of other animals being mistreated and killed increases.

…

The eventual domestication of various groups of other animals shortly rendered their exploitation and death a mundane matter for their captors. The perceived naturalness of such treatment grew with the expansion of agriculture production in various parts of the world, an economic practice that facilitated growth in the populations of other animals such as sheep, goats, cows, pigs, and others held captive. Imprisonment and “domestication” of other animals diminished humans’ ability and willingness to see the nature and abilities of other animals. Writing in 1754, for example, Jean-Jacques Rousseau observed, “the horse, the cat, the bull … are for the most part larger, and all have more robust constitution, more vigour, more strength and more spirit in the forest than under our roofs; they lose half those advantages on becoming domesticated, and one might say that all our efforts to care for and feed these animals have only succeeded in making them degenerate.”

A servile and listless demeanor follows when an individual is stripped of self-determination and liberty, or has never experienced them. The confinement of other animals in small or tiny areas, where they were unable to behave in ways that were natural to them, or even to distance themselves from mud and excrement, to clean and groom themselves, and to seek comfortable bedding, also unquestionably contributed to their devaluation and fostered the “lower” status that had been ascribed to them. For the most part, recognition of the individuality and personality of confined other animals waned as their numbers grew.

Thus, as other animals became more deeply integrated into the day-to-day organization of agricultural society, their “inferior” it status, relative to human animals – especially those human animals perceived as intrinsically important and valuable — came to be viewed as natural. The powerful and compelling forces that diminished human recognition of the significance and individuality of other animals also subverted recognition of and sensitivity to the individuality and suffering of devalued humans who were cast into such positions as slave, peasant, and harem possession.

The political, educational, religious, and familial institutions of these societies were shaped and molded by the economically motivated oppression of humans and other animals. Through custom and practice, the “rightful” place of both the powerful and the oppressed were engraved in the collective, and, accordingly, individual consciousness. The power of this ideological force can be so compelling that it is common for oppressed humans to accept the “naturalness” of their own devalued position. For example, reflecting on his experience growing up African-American in the southern United States early in the 20th century, Amze Moore recounted,

for a long time, I had the idea that a man with white skin was superior because it appeared to me that he had everything. And I figured if God would justify the white man having everything, that God put him in the position to be the best.

Meanwhile, those who do not suffer oppression, and may even reap some benefits from the oppression of others, similarly are steeped in a social reality that presents the arrangements as natural. Again, drawing an example from the pervasiveness of racism in the southern United States, civil rights activist Virginia Durr recalled:

If you’re born into a system that’s wrong, whether it’s a slave system, or whether it is a segregated system, you take it for granted. And I was born into a system that was segregated and denied blacks the right to vote, and also denied women the right to vote, and I took it for granted. Nobody told me any different, nobody said it was strange or unusual.

…

No matter how strong the ideas that rationalize and promote oppression, there are always some in every society, like Virginia Durr, who nonetheless perceive that something is wrong. Some find they are unable to look indifferently at the suffering experienced by others – especially if they do not have vested interests in the oppression they observe. If these individuals set their ideas down in political tracts or travel speaking out against the particular social arrangements to others similarly situated in the social order, they have the potential to cast doubt upon the perceived naturalness of oppressive practices, in turn perhaps challenging the economic practices from which many powerful individuals derive wealth.

As a result, throughout the ages it has been necessary for many philosophers, system apologists, and later, “scientists” to expound ideas that counter such dissension and reinforce acceptance of oppressive practices. Plato, for instance, in his most famous work, The Republic, maintained that some humans were more useful to society than others. Using a metallurgic metaphor, Plato asserted that some humans were “gold,” some were “silver,” some were “iron,” and that each had a specific service to provide. Workers produced, soldiers protected the state, and philosophers – the “golden humans” – ruled. Pythagoras expressed concern about human treatment of other animals in ancient Greece around 500 B.C., but ideas such as those of Aristotle that legitimized privilege carried the day – or rather, the epoch. Aristotle defended the oppression of other animals against those who questioned the naturalness of those arrangements, as seen in the following passage from Politics:

Plants exist for the sake of animals, and brute beasts for the sake of man – domestic animals for his use and food, wild ones (or at any rate most of them) for food and other accessories of life, such as clothing and various tools.

Since nature makes nothing purposeless or in vain, it is undeniably true that she has made all animals for the sake of man.

…

Another way to buttress ethnocentrism and ideological support for oppression, and to protect the status quo, is to scapegoat devalued others for the structural problems that beset the populace. As we have seen, women were scapegoated for the myriad ills that plagued the corrupt system of social arrangements of medieval society, and the “witch” hunts emerged. Both Protestant and Catholic churches in the late Middle Ages persecuted women, mostly peasant women, as witches. Church officials created handbooks that aided the inquisitors by instructing them in various forms of torture that could be used to extract “confessions” from witches… Cats and others thought to be closely aligned with “witches” also were blamed for the ills of the period, resulting in their torture and death as well.

…

The economically motivated oppression that grew dramatically with the development and expansion of agricultural society no doubt seemed to many as natural. Philosophical and religious-based ideologies (ideas that were backed by the various powers of the state) were created and ethnocentrism fanned to reduce intellectual challenges to oppressive economic arrangements.

The advent of capitalism brought about dramatic changes not only in the form and scale of oppression but also in the justification and rationalization used to support it. Powerful merchants, striving to create social systems more conducive to to creation of commercial profit and wealth, began to challenge existing social arrangements. Nascent capitalists needed and ideology to undermine the control of the church and monarchies that long had dictated what economic goods would be produced, who would produce them, and how they would be distributed. Philosophers and writers created new rationalizations and explanations about what was natural and just. These emerging ideas shunned long-held metaphysical ideas about the divine rights of rulers and the rightful places of their “subjects” and sought to replace the troublesome existing theological explanations of the world with mathematical and scientific ones. These new ideas purported to represent the interests of the “common man” and to signal the birth of a new era – one with increased sensitivity to human rights. In truth, these new ideas largely supported the transfer of political, social and economic power to a new elite, doing relatively little to stem oppression. The emerging new ruling class in capitalist society was wary of any true economic empowerment of the masses, lest the masses push for economic empowerment and a more equitable distribution of resources.

…

In the United States, idealistic philosophical tenets were brandished by reformers and revolutionaries who charged the new elite class with perpetuating and profiting from widespread poverty and misery. In response, the U.S. elite found ideological refuge in “science.” Having diluted metaphysical justifications for privilege and rule by divine right, the capitalist elite rationalized their power, control and privilege by virtue of their alleged intellectual superiority. As the twentieth century approached, pseudoscientific social Darwinist philosophy had become an important tool with which to defend against challenges to oppression. Poverty, disease, hunger, and other social problems existed, according to social Darwinists, because immigrants, humans of color, and those living in poverty were “intellectually inferior” to the “successful.” The ideas underlying social Darwinism were seductive in their simplicity and easily promulgated. The perspective this theory offered was easily accepted, as the long-held devaluation of humans with disabilities and the stereotype of the “dumb” animal had for centuries supplemented religious legitimization of their exploitation. With the ascent of science, the alleged lack of intelligence of an individual or group became a more powerful justification for oppression. The place and treatment of the oppressed continued to be presented as natural and normal and to be used to rationalize various unjust arrangements, such as institutionalized racism. For example, in 1940 L.L. Burlingame, professor of biology at Stanford University and an apologist for ethnic oppression, wrote, “In proportion to their numbers, Negroes contribute far too too few persons of high ability and far too many who are low or deficient in ability… Mexicans are the second most serious race problem. They are apparently of distinctly low mental caliber, have not yet produced eminence and do contribute heavily to various dependent classes.’

Similarly, oppression of other animals has frequently been defended by accentuating their alleged deficiencies as well. For instance, in a 1968 book titled Sportsman’s Guide to Game Animals, Leonard Lee Rue III justified hunting opossums by virtue of their “stupidity.”

[The opossum's] tiny brain case indicates it is one of the stupidest animals alive… The animal can stand more physical abuse than any other creature I know of. I have seen people beat opossums with clubs, attempt to drown them and even hang them, and although the opossums certainly didn’t enjoy this treatment, they frequently were able to survive.

The notion that other animals were low in a natural hierarchy of living beings due to their alleged lack of intelligence was further buttressed by behaviorism, a school of “scientific” thought that maintained that the lack of empirical laboratory proof of the existence of consciousness – especially in other animals– required that scientists regard them as only mechanically responding to mechanical stimuli. This twentieth century version of Descartes’s view provided further “scientific” defense for the oppressive practices on other animals.

Thus, in the age of “liberty, equality, fraternity,” many oppressed groups were disparaged for their alleged “low mental caliber” and consequently scaled low in a hierarchy of worth. The measurement of an individual’s or group’s value was based on the purported level of intelligence, measured or attributed in ethnocentric, anthropocentric ways. In addition, ecofeminists have observed that ideas about the hierarchy of worth are deeply entwined with patriarchy, a system of social organization in which masculinity is valued over femininity.

Mass Media

Before the twentieth century, entertainment, news and information were provided mainly by public gatherings and town meetings and through the distribution of pamphlets and tracts. By the nineteenth century, magazines and newspapers grew in number and readership, permitting the publishers to share their views of the world – and their prejudices – with the literate of the time. For example, widely circulated magazines such as Judge and Puck routinely disparaged oppressed groups through stereotyped and disparaging portrayals in cartoons and graphics.

The twentieth century brought movies and newsreels that continued to present the oppressed in ways that legitimized their status and treatment. Oppressed groups have frequently been portrayed in films either as dangerous threats to “civilized” society or as comic buffoons with obvious intellectual deficiencies. For example, one of the first widely viewed feature films, Birth of a Nation, told a story of how granting voting rights to humans once enslaved in the United States would corrupt the country. At the same time, many black actors, like Step ‘n Fetchit, were restricted to playing “fools,” amusing white audiences with their “moronic” behaviors. Overall, however, the countless others who experienced oppression, were largely invisible in films. Such invisibility rendered them unimportant, if not nonexistent. They had few stories, experiences or struggles worthy of telling about; when they did appear, their devaluation was represented in the positions in which they were cast — adjuncts to the important and worthy central characters. They appeared as servants, assistants, drivers, and were vehicles of transportation, laborers and other roles that implicitly, but powerfully, portrayed their lowly positions. Michael Parenti observes that this “invented reality” was largely the product of wealthy film producers and distributors. While a few films presented notable exceptions to this rule, they were usually not widely distributed, and they rarely connected the oppression and suffering directly to the capitalist system.

With the advent of radio and television, the ability of powerful capitalists to exert influence over popular culture and the day-to-day perceptions and experiences of the citizenry increased enormously. The capitalist-controlled mass media became a powerful ideological force, arguably the greatest instrument of propaganda in modern society.

…

Gays and lesbians have been portrayed as, at best, presenting problems and uncomfortable situations for heterosexuals on television programs, and humans who are older are frequently “infantized” and represented in stereotypical ways when they appear in television programs and commercials. Similarly, despite years of activism, women are still sexually objectified and widely represented in stereotypical ways. While some programs may occasionally counter such defaming images, these efforts have yet to dilute significantly the oppressive ideology propagated through the mass media.

Likewise, media portrayals of other animals also reflect the assumed naturalness of their lowly social status. Like the other oppressed groups, other animals are frequently portrayed as dangerous and largely deserving of violent treatment.

…

In 1994, the Ark Trust, an animal rights group that monitors media portrayals of animal issues, commissioned a study of the portrayals of other animals on television. The principle findings of the study were:

Violence toward animals is rampant in Saturday morning children’s programs, even more so than in prime-time programming.

Compared to humans, animals are over-represented as perpetrators of violence.

Wild animals are treated worse than other types, especially when in their own habitat.

Compared to humans, animals are more frequently cast as villains.

Animal activists are depicted as violent most of the time they are shown, and disapproval of animal rights activists is much more frequent than approval.

…

In the vast majority of novels, stories, and films, the virtual invisibility of other animals – similar to that of devalued groups of other humans – teaches that their lives and experiences are irrelevant and insignificant. Reflecting on the results of his study, George Gerbner maintains that the portrayals of other animals mirrors the views of corporate America. He specifically cites the interests of agribusiness. “Agriculture and the meat industry have a very strong investment in the types of portrayals we get.” Even when the influence is indirect, “there’s a very active censorship in the [entertainment] industry to avoid material that offends advertisers.”

…

Since much of what we see and learn is filtered through, if not directly propagated by, powerful capitalists, we should acknowledge that everything we know about animals we see primarily in corporate terms.

The control of the mass media by the capitalist class is used not only to disparage the oppressed but also to create a growing demand for products. With the development of almost total corporate control of the mass media during the twentieth century, a relatively informed and active citizenry has been largely transformed into a “mass” of consumers.

…

The masses of humans are incessantly exhorted to eat “meat” and to consume the products derived from the oppressive treatment of other animals (not to mention to increase their use of pharmaceuticals, purchase new automobiles, smoke cigarettes, consume alcohol, see new Hollywood films created by Disney, Viacom, AOL Time Warner, and other media conglomerates, etc.). If, as many would have us believe, eating the flesh and body products of other animals is so “natural” to humans, why are billions of dollars spent just to ensure the continuation and expansion of this genocidal, destructive, and debilitating consumption pattern?

…

Education

As children enter the world of organized education, they learn to see other animals through the official and “scientific” lens – that is, as our inferiors and as tools for learning. From preschool through graduate and professional training, the education system largely teaches that other animals are unimportant and insignificant except for serviceable purposes.

For many children, other animals are brought into the classroom in cages as “mascots,” “pets,” and “science projects.” Chick-hatching projects, for example, are still widely used in preschool and elementary school classrooms. Defenders of such projects contend the activity fosters an appreciation of “the beauty and wonder of life” and “respect for all living things” and promotes consideration of “how wonderful life and living creatures are.” these goals, however, are utterly inconsistent with the realities of hatching projects. Children are taught that it is acceptable to deprive baby animals of their mothers and for animals to be kept in unnatural, stark environments. Moreover, the children are deceived about the ultimate fate of the chicks – for most, a “disposal” that would horrify the children and adults who briefly come to know them.

…

Children’s museums are yet another powerful socialization device about the role of devalued others in society. The Boonshoft Museum of Discovery in Dayton, Ohio, introduces children to the range of species of animals “that are native to the state” by way of a miniature zoo. Animals ranging from a coyote and a bobcat to an opossum to a squirrel are imprisoned in tiny spaces and viewed through thick glass while photographic images of the Ohio landscape line the backs of their stark cubicles. Decapitated and mounted “trophy” heads of numerous species of animals are displayed in another area of the museum, juxtaposed with exhibits on indigenous humans and “other cultures” – now all relegated to the status of “natural history.” Similarly, the Indianapolis Children’s Museum’s exhibit on U.S. History teaches how other animals have contributed to the “development of Western civilization,” naturally serving as food, clothing, and other resources. From hanging a killed and stuffed deer by her front legs in a model human settlement to displaying the bodies, or body parts, of numerous other animals in a display of a “butcher” shop, the message sent about the worth and place of other animals is profound. Of particular significance is an exhibit that re-creates an entire “French Fur Trading Post” filled with actual “pelts” of other animals.

…

Language

One way in which humans anthropocentrically distance themselves from others is in the “deanimalized” description of our bodies and our social activities. For example, humans have “hair” while others have “fur,” humans have “skin” while others have “hide,” and deceased humans are “corpses” while deceased others are “carcasses.” Associated humans are called “groups,” while associations of some other animals are called “herds.” Humans “have sex,” while other animals “mate,” “rut,” or “reproduce.”

Humans are commonly called “dog,” “pig,” “cow,” “jackass,” “weasel,” “ape,” “turkey,” and other names with the intent to insult or disgrace. This process defames other animals, who are regarded as bad, while encouraging humans to see themselves as distinct and superior to the lowly, offensive other. Similarly, another way to put someone down is to call them “stupid,” “dumb,” “numbskull,” “peabrain,” “bonehead,” “idiot,” “moron,” “imbecile,” and numerous other words that denigrate them by suggesting they have a developmental disability – a defamation of humans with disabilities that plays a profound role in their social marginalization and victimization. Similarly, males frequently seek to slight and humiliate one another by calling other males “girls,” “ladies,” “panty-waists,” “sissies,” “bitches,” and other more obscene phrases that equate them with the apparently inferior female. The parallels in these linguistic patterns illuminate not only the common motivations for the subjugation of others but also the hierarchical and ideological entanglements of these various forms of oppression. Some terms of denigration, such as “dumb ass” and “stupid bitch,” are intended to injure another by comparison to two or more devalued groups.

While comparison to the devalued and “vile” other serves to naturalize the “others’” oppressed status, other words are used to mask the actions and processes that are based in abusive and even torturous treatment of the oppressed. For example, the practice of stalking and killing other animals is sanitized by referring to other sentient beings as “game.”; terms such as culling, harvesting, and taking are used instead of the words killing or murdering.Within the increasingly mechanized processes of late twentieth-century factory farms, pigs, cows, sheep, chickens, and other groups of animals are referred to in the industry as “food-processing units” and “protein harvesters.” After they are slaughtered, dismembered, and processed for consumption, they are symbolically sterilized and presented not as cows and pigs but as “meat,” “hamburgers,” “bacon,” “sausage,” and “poultry” in a form of verbal and ideological sleight of hand.

This “verbal and ideological sleight of hand” can be very powerful because the way we define things helps determine how we perceive them. Definitions can make certain aspects of reality seem more important and make others barely noticeable. The categories we use can influence the ability of people to feel empathy or a sense of justice towards other animals. For example, when animals are categorized as food, people are more likely to see them as having a diminished capacity to suffer and as less worthy of moral concern. This may help explain why cultures differ in which animal species they consider food and which they consider it disgusting and immoral to eat.

]]> http://www.veganism.com/speciesist-reality/feed/ 0 http://www.veganism.com/the-century-of-the-self/ http://www.veganism.com/the-century-of-the-self/#comments Sun, 05 Feb 2012 15:07:34 +0000 admin http://www.veganism.com/?p=419 “And everybody was happy.” –Edward Bernays

The Century if the Self is a documentary about how Edward Bernays mastered the art of manipulation and the influence of the marketing and manipulation techniques he developed on politics and society in the United States.

The Century of the self [1/4] Happiness Machines from zerzoura on Vimeo.

The Century of the Self [2/4] The Engineering of Consent from zerzoura on Vimeo.

The Century of the Self [3/4] There is a Policeman Inside All Our Heads: He Must Be Destroyed from zerzoura on Vimeo.

The Century of the self [4/4] Eight People Sipping Wine in Kettering from zerzoura on Vimeo.

¿Te imaginas no haber nacido humano? from Equanimal on Vimeo.