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The politics of the AC perpetuates anthropocentric oppression- their faith in theprogressive nature of their project a priori excludes the non-human and leads to a

view of the individual that makes the exploitation of nature inevitableBell and Russell 2K(Anne C. by graduate students in the Faculty of Environmental Studies, York Universi- ty and Constance L. a graduate student at the Ontario

Institute for Studies in Educa- tion, University of Toronto, Beyond Human, Beyond Words: Anthropocentrism, Critical Pedagogy, and the

Poststructuralist Turn, http://www.csse-scee.ca/CJE/Articles/FullText/CJE25-3/CJE25-3-bell.pdf [10/24/11])

Bowers (1993a, 1993b) has identifieda number of root metaphorsor analogs in critical pedagogy that reinforce the

problem of anthropocentric thinking. These include the notion of change as inherently

progressive, faith in the power of rational thought, and an understanding of individuals as potentiallyfree,

voluntaristic entities who will take responsibility for creating themselves when freed from societal

forms of oppression on which critical pedagogy, and indeed liberal education generally, is based. In other words, they are

culturally specific and stem from a period in Western history when the modern industrial world

view was beginning to take shape. To be fair, Bowers understates the extent to which these assumptions are beingquestioned within critical pedagogy (e.g., Giroux, 1995; Peters, 1995; Shapiro, 1994; Weiler & Mitchell, 1992, pp. 1, 5). Nevertheless, his

main point is well taken: proponents of critical pedagogy have yet to confront the ecological

consequences of an educational process that reinforces beliefs and practices formed when

unlimited economic expansion and social progress seemed promised(Bowers, 1993b, p. 3). What happens

when the expansion of human possibilities is equated with the possibilities of consumption? How is educating for freedom

predicated on the exploitation of the nonhuman? Such queries push against taken-for-granted understandings ofhuman, nature, self, and community, and thus bring into focus the underlying tension between freedom as it is constituted within

critical pedagogy and the limits that emerge through consideration of humans interdependence with the more-than-human world. This

tension is symptomatic of anthropocentrism. Humans are assumed to be free agents separate from and

pitted against the rest of nature, our fulfillment predicated on overcoming material constraints. This assumptionof humandifference and superiority, central to Western thought since Aristotle (Abram, 1996, p. 77), has long been used to justify the

exploitation of nature by and for humankind(Evernden, 1992, p. 96). It has also been used to justify the

exploitation of human groups (e.g., women, Blacks, queers, indigenous peoples) deemed to be closer to nature

that is, animalistic, irrational, savage, or uncivilized (Gaard, 1997; Haraway, 1989, p. 30; Selby, 1995, pp. 1720; Spiegel, 1988). This

organic apartheid(Evernden, 1992, p. 119) is bolstered by the belief that language is an exclusively

human property that elevates mere biological existence to meaningful, social existence. Understood inthis way, language undermines our embodied sense of interdependence with a more-than-human world. Rather than being a point of

entry into the webs of communication all around us, language becomes a medium through which we set

ourselves apart and above . This view of language is deeply embedded in the conceptual

framework of critical pedagogy, including poststructuralist approaches. So too is the human/nature

dichotomy upon which it rests. When writers assume that it is language that enables us to think,

speak and give meaning to the world around us, that meaning and consciousness do not existoutside language (Weedon, 1987, p. 32) and that subjectivity is constructed byand in language(Luke &

Luke, 1995, p. 378), then their transformative projects are encoded so as to exclude any consideration

of the nonhuman. Such assumptions effectively remove all subjects from nature.As Evernden (1992) putsit, if subjectivity, willing, valuation, and meaning are securely lodged in the domain of humanity, the possibility of enc ountering anything

more than material objects in nature is nil (p. 108). What is forgotten? What is erasedwhen the real is equated with a

proliferating culture of commodified signs (see Luke & Luke, 1995, on Baudrillard)? To begin, we forget that we humans

are surrounded by an astonishing diversity of life forms. We no longer perceive or give expression to a world in
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which everything has intelligence, personality, and voice. Polyphonous echoes are reduced to homophony, a termKane (1994) uses to denote the reduced sound of human language when it is used under the assumption that speech is something

belonging only to human beings (p. 192). We forget toowhat Abram (1996) describes as the gestural, somatic

dimension of language, its sensory and physical resonance that we share with all expressive

bodies (p. 80). The vast forgetting to which these scholars allude is a culturally and historically

specific phenomenon.In Western culture, explains Evernden (1992), it is to the Renaissance that we owe the modern

conceptualization of nature from which all human qualities, including linguistic expression, have been segregated and dismissed asprojection. Once scoured of any normative content assigned to humanity, nature is strictly constrained, knowable, and ours to

interrogate (pp. 28, 3940, 48). It is objectified as a thing, whereas any status as agent or social being is reserved for humans (Haraway,

1988, p. 592). The language best suited to this cleansing of nature is that of the natural sciences. Scientific accounts, written in

languageexclusively descriptive and avowedly neutral (Evernden, 1992, p. 85), are widely regarded as factual and unbiased a nd thus are

granted a privileged role in naming nature. As Haraway (1986) explains: A scientist names nature in written, public documents, which

are endowed with the special, institutionally enforced quality of being perceived as objective and applicable beyond the cultures of the

people who wrote those documents. (p. 79) According to Haraway (1986), the aesthetic of realism that underlies the truth claims of the

natural sciences means many practitioners tend to see themselves not as interpreters but as discoverers moving from descript ion to

causal explanation (p. 89). Haraways analysis reminds us that poststructuralism can and should be used to call into question the

universal legitimacy of science insofar as it is used to explicate not only the human domain but also the natural sciences. This questioning

almost never takes place. Whereas accusations of reductionism have been levelled at the biobehavioural sciences when focused on

humans (e.g., explaining behaviour solely in genetic terms), rarely are these accusations made against similar studies on nonhumans

(Noske, 1997, p. 83). The reason, presumably, is that the sorts of questions that could be raised about how culture, class, race, and gender

shape knowledge about human experience do not pertain to truth claims about the nonhuman. Humans alone are understood to have

histories open to interpretation. Everything else is matter for measurement and prediction, physical stuff that can be described and

classified once and for all. To move beyond such taken-for-granted notions of human and nature,Evernden

and Haraway suggest, we must admit into the conversation some non-common-sensical insights and

some unsettling possibilities(Evernden, 1992, p. 102 and Haraway, 1988, p. 593, respectively). Haraway (1992) writes of

otherworldly conversations, a metaphor helpful in pointing to the possibility of conversants in a

discourse in which all of the actors are not us (p. 84). To this end, we consider a few promising

reconceptualizations of what might constitute language, agency, and meaningful existence

beyond the human realm.

The ACs silence is a loaded presencetheir forgetting of the non-human world and the

individualistic formation of agency ensure the replication of prevailing

anthropocentric power relationsBell and Russell 2K(Anne C. by graduate students in the Faculty of Environmental Studies, York Universi- ty and Constance L. a graduate student at the Ontario

Institute for Studies in Educa- tion, University of Toronto, Beyond Human, Beyond Words: Anthropocentrism, Critical Pedagogy, and the

Poststructuralist Turn, http://www.csse-scee.ca/CJE/Articles/FullText/CJE25-3/CJE25-3-bell.pdf [10/24/11])

For this reason, the various movements against oppression need to be aware of and supportive of each other. In critical pedagogy,

however, the exploration of questions of race, gender, class, and sexuality has proceeded so far with

little acknowledgement of the systemic links between human oppressions and the domination of

nature. The more-than-human world and human relationships to it have been ignored, as if the

suffering and exploitation of other beings and the global ecological crisis were somehow

irrelevant.Despite the call for attention to voices historically absent from traditional canons and

narratives(Sadovnik, 1995, p. 316),nonhuman beings are shrouded in silence. This silence characterizes

even the work of writers who call for a rethinking of all culturally positioned essentialisms. Like

other educators influenced by poststructuralism, we agree that there is a need to scrutinize the language we use, the

meanings we deploy, and the epistemological frameworks of past eras(Luke & Luke, 1995, p. 378). To

treat social categories as stable and unchanging is to reproduce the prevailing relations of power

(Britzman et al., 1991, p. 89). What would it mean, then, for critical pedagogy to extend this investigation and critique to

include taken-for-granted understandings of human, animal, and nature? This question is

difficult to raise precisely because these understandings are taken for granted. The

anthropocentric bias in critical pedagogy manifests itself in silence and in the asides of texts. Since

it is not a topic of discussion, it can be difficult to situate a critique of it. Following feminist analyses, we find
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that examples of anthropocentrism, like examples of gender symbolization, occur in those places where speakers reveal the as sumptions

they think they do not need to defend, beliefs they expect to share with their a udiences (Harding, 1986, p. 112). Take, for example,

Freires (1990) statements about the differences between Man and animals. To set up his discussion of praxis and the import ance of

naming the world, he outlines what he assumes to be shared, commons ensical beliefs about humans and other animals. He defines the

boundaries of human membership according to a sharp, hierarchical dichotomy that establishes human superiority. Humans alone, he

reminds us, are aware and self-conscious beings who can act to fulfill the objectives they set for themselves. Humans alone are able to

infuse the world with their creative presence, to overcome situations that limit them, and thus to demonstrate a decisive attitude

towards the world (p. 90). Freire (1990, pp. 8791) represents other animals in terms of their lack of such traits. They are doomed to

passively accept the given, their lives totally determined because their decisions belong not to themselves but to their sp ecies. Thuswhereas humans inhabit a world which they create and transform and from which they can separate themselves, for animals there is

only habitat, a mere physical space to which they are organically bound. To accept Freires assumptions is to believe that humans are

animals only in a nominal sense. We are different not in degree but in kind, and though we might recognize that other animals have

distinct qualities, we as humans are somehow more unique. We have the edge over other creatures because we are able to rise above

monotonous, species-determined biological existence. Change in the service of human freedom is seen to be our primary agenda.

Humans are thus cast as active agents whose very essence is to transform the worldas if

somehow acceptance, appreciation, wonder, and reverence were beyond the pale. This discursive frame

of reference is characteristic of critical pedagogy. The human/animal opposition upon which it rests is taken for

granted, its cultural and historical specificity not acknowledged. And therein lies the problem. Like

other social constructions, this one derives its persuasiveness from its seeming facticity and from the

deep investments individuals and communities have in setting themselves off from others (Britzman

et al., 1991, p. 91). This becomes the normal way of seeing the world, and like other discourses of

normalcy, it limits possibilities of taking up and confronting inequities(see Britzman, 1995). The primacy

of the human enterprise is simply not questioned.Precisely how an anthropocentric pedagogy might exacerbate theenvironmental crisis has not received much consideration in the literature of critical pedagogy, especially in North America. Although

there may be passing reference to planetary destruction, there is seldom mention of the relationship between education and the

domination of nature, let alone any sustained exploration of the links between the domination of nature and other social injustices.

Concerns about the nonhuman are relegatedto environmental education. And since environmental education, in turn,

remains peripheral to the core curriculum (A. Gough, 1997; Russell, Bell, & Fawcett, 2000), anthropocentrism passes

unchallenged.1

Anthropocentric ordering is the foundation of the war machine and drives the

exclusion of populations based on race, ethnicity and genderKochi, 2K9(Tarik, Sussex law school, Species war: Law, Violence and Animals, Law Culture and Humanities Oct 5.3)

Grotius and Hobbes are sometimes described as setting out a prudential approach,28 or a natural law of minimal content29 because in

contrast to Aristotelian or Thomastic legal and political theory their attempt to derive the legitimacy of the state and sovereign order

relies less upon a thick conception of the good life and is more focussed upon basic human needs such as survival. In the context of a

response to religious civil war such an approach made sense in that often thick moral and religious conceptions of the good life (for

example, those held by competing Christian Confessions) often drove conflict and violence. Yet, it would be a mistake to

assume that the categories of survival, preservation of life and bare life are neutral categories.

Rather survival, preservation of lifeand bare life as expressed by the Westphalian theoretical tradition already contain

distinctions of valuein particular, the specific distinction of value between human and non-

human life. Bare life in this sense is not bare but contains within it a distinction of value between the worth of human life placedabove and beyond the worth of non-human animal life. In this respect bare life within this tradition contains within it a hidden conception

of the good life. The foundational moment of the modern juridical conception of the law of waralready contains within it the operation of species war.The Westphalian tradition puts itself forward as grounding

the legitimacy of violence upon the preservation of life, however its concern for life is already marked by a hierarchy

of value in which non-human animal life is violently used as the rawmaterialfor preserving

human life. Grounded upon, but concealing the human-animal distinction, theWestphalian

conception of war makes a double move: it excludes the killing of animals from its definition of

war proper, and, through rendering dominant the modern juridical definition of war proper

the tradition is able to further institutionalize and normalize a particular conception of the good


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life.Following from this original distinction of life-value realized through the juridical language of war

were other forms of human life whose lives were considered to be of a lesser value under a European,

Christian, secular30 natural law conception of the good life. Underneath this concern with the preservation of life

in general stood veiled preferences over what particular forms of life (such as racial conceptions

of human life) and ways of living were worthy of preservation, realization and elevation. The business

contracts of early capitalism,31 the power of white males over women and children, and, especially in thecolonial context, the sanctity of European life over non-European and Christian lives over non-

Christian heathens and Muslims, were some of the dominant forms of life preferred for

preservation within the early modern juridical ordering of war.

Evaluate impact solvency based on who solves the root causeproximate causes are

useless and only replicate their harmsShaw and Wong, 89- *Ph.D., Health Economist and Program at Adviser of the Human Development Group at the World Bank AND**HSBC Distinguished Visiting Professor of International Business at the University of British Columbia (*R. Paul AND **Yuwa, 1989, Genetic

Seeds of Warfare: evolution, nationalism and patriotism, Google Books, p. 11-12)

So far, we have synthesized many studies indicating that intergroup warfare is a frequent and widespread event and is used to gain

control over potentially limiting resources. It is underwritten by aggression with both anatomical and neurochemical correlates. Such

information is not sufficient, however, to establish that humanity has a propensity for warfare. Nor is itsufficient to produce a comprehensive theory of warfaring propensities. Fundamental questions are still unresolved. What ultimate

utilizes have humans sought to maximize when engaging in warfare? Why do individuals ultimately band together, often along ethnic

lines, in groups when waging war? What ever-larger evolutionary process favored alliances of groups for competition/warfare? What is

the role of the brain, cognition, and conscious reflection in all of this? Such questions demand consideration of ultimate

causesthe underlying reasons for an activity existing in an animals repertoire of behaviors.

What is important from this view is not specific differences in a behavior(for example, aggression) and its

forms, but why that behavior exists at all. In other words, what ultimate utility or payoff has a particular activity provided forit to have been reinforced and retained throughout evolution? It is important here to distinguish between ultimate and proximate causes

insofar as the latter focus specifically on contemporary or immediate stimuli which trigger an activity. For example, it has been established

that infants aged 6 to 18 months demonstrate a fear of strangers. A proximate analysis would address events triggering the fear, such as a

strange person walking toward a baby. Ultimate analysis would ask whether the fear response was innate and, if so, what factors

influence its evolution. (as it happens, evidence has accumulated suggesting such behavior is innate. It is called xenophobia and will be

discussed further in chapter 4). It is indeed unfortunate that most political scientists, sociologists, and psychologiststend to be most familiar with proximate factors(causes and functions) involving cognitive, social, physical, and

neurophsyiological stimulus events which surround and mediate conflict. Why is this so? On reason is that the study of

proximate factors allows more control, involves less time, and is more convenient and inexpensive

than the comparativelongitudinal and genetic approachesrequires to shed light on ultimate factors (Charlesworth 1986).

Second, analysis of different kinds of proximate causes is the raison detre for the different academic disciplines themselves. An

interdisciplinary approach, on the other hand, attempts to decode complex, ultimate structures

involving the interaction of many different kinds of variables. Notwithstanding the renewed importance attachedto interdisciplinary work, much ongoing research remains discipline bound and is content with analysis of proximate causes. For instance,

the authors were shocked when the director of a school of international relations suggested their work would ne be taken seriously by

political scientists unless communicated in political science terminology, couched in political science theory, and affiliated with a political

science institute. Yet another reason for neglect of ultimate factors is their close tie to scientific traditions such as biology and behavioral

ecology. Modes of reasoning in evolutionary theory and population biology have remained largely unfamiliar to social scientists. This point

can be illustrated by new discipline sociobiology, a synthesis of ideas and data originating from several life sciences. These include

molecular biology, population biology, theoretical ecology. Borrowing from Wind (1984), Figure 1.2 relates these and other sciences to

sociobiology. It also represents a crude attempt to order causes leading to particular class of behavior (for example, aggression) in Homo

sapiens and in nonhuman primates such as chimpanzees. By drawing on sociobiology, among other disciplines, we

can advance a new and more fundamental understanding of humanitys propensity for warfare. The

challenge is to discern how ultimate causes have interacted with changing environments during

evolution to produce sets of temporal, proximate causes which, themselves, may operate in an

ultimate or reinforcing sense.Such reasoning does not employ sociobiology to suggest that genetic determinism or gene(s) for


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warfare exists. Rather, it is precisely this emphasis on ultimate causality that leads us to identity and

understand important proximate causeswhich emerged in humanitys early history to reinforce propensities for warfare.

Alternative Text: Adopt an animal standpoint epistemology.

Only adopting an animal standpoint epistemology solves their impactsits also

mutually exclusive with the affBest, 10Associate Professor of Humanities and Philosophy at the University of Texas at El Paso (Steven, 12/31/10, Total Liberation:Revolution for the 21

stCentury,http://drstevebest.wordpress.com/2010/12/31/total-liberation-revolution-for-the-21st-century-4/,

KONTOPOULOS)

But while people have written history from the theological perspective, the humanist perspective,

and the environmental determinism perspective, to date there has been little from the animal

perspective.Marx once stated that the riddle of history (the origins of domination) is grasped in theory and resolved in practice by

communism; in truth, however, the origin and evolution of hierarchy and dominator societies cannot be

deciphered without the animal standpoint, for the ten thousand year reign of human domination

over other animals is central to comprehending humanitys most serious problems, as it isfundamental to resolving them.Animal Standpoint Theory According to feminist standpoint theory, each oppressed group

has an important perspective or insight into the nature of society.[iii] People of color, for instance, can illuminate

colonialism and the pathology of racism, while women can reveal the logic of patriarchy that has

buttressed so many different modes of social power throughout history. While animals cannot speak about their

sufferings in human language, it is only from the animal standpointanalyzing how humans have

related to and exploited other animals that we can grasp central aspects of the emergence and

development of hierarchy. Without the animal standpoint, we cannot understand the core

dynamics of the domination of humans over animals, the earth, and one another; the pathology

of human violence, warfare, militarism, and genocide; the ongoing animal Holocaust; and the key

causes of the current global ecological crisis. From the animal standpoint, we can see that the

oppression of human over human and the human exploitation of nature have deep roots in thehuman domination over nonhuman animals.

The perm fails-the attempt to embrace animals flattens out difference as the specifics

of species based oppression are cast aside- this anthropocentric move disables the

ability of the affirmative to empower the non-humanAhuja 2k9

(Neel, Asst Prof English and Comparative Lit at UNC, Postcolonial critique in multispecies world, www.unc.edu/~nahuja/Ahuja%20-

%20PMLA.pdf[10/24/11])

Race and speciesconcepts that precede modern scientific thoughtwere historically united in

nature through a modern epistemologythat understood bodies in terms of resemblances in their deep organic struc-tures. This is the basis of what I call speciated reason, the taxonomic paradigm that based its categorization of bodies on functionalist

descriptions of organs and systems. Emerging with an animal-centered evolutionary biology, this episteme

was consolidated from 1800 to 1930. Although speciated reason challenged absolute divisions

between species, it also naturalized biological difference, legitimizing the definition of racial

groups as subspecies(a definition that justifed colonization and extermination) and reinforcingheterosexual reproduction as the privileged site of species definition for multicellular organisms.3 A common response to the racial lega-

cies of speciated reason is to describe non-European worldviews that unveil the episteme as provincial.4 This strategy is important for

highlighting the contingency of speciated reason, although it may occasion an essentialist trap of situating the others of Europe outside

modernity. To explain speciated reasons influence beyond the borders of Europe, critics of racial and

colonial power have taken up another strategy, critiquing animalization, the organized subjection of racialized groups
http://drstevebest.wordpress.com/2010/12/31/total-liberation-revolution-for-the-21st-century-4/http://drstevebest.wordpress.com/2010/12/31/total-liberation-revolution-for-the-21st-century-4/http://www.unc.edu/~nahuja/Ahuja%20-%20PMLA.pdfhttp://www.unc.edu/~nahuja/Ahuja%20-%20PMLA.pdfhttp://www.unc.edu/~nahuja/Ahuja%20-%20PMLA.pdfhttp://www.unc.edu/~nahuja/Ahuja%20-%20PMLA.pdfhttp://www.unc.edu/~nahuja/Ahuja%20-%20PMLA.pdfhttp://www.unc.edu/~nahuja/Ahuja%20-%20PMLA.pdfhttp://drstevebest.wordpress.com/2010/12/31/total-liberation-revolution-for-the-21st-century-4/


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through animal figures. Animalization involves contextual comparisons between animals (as laborers, food, pests, or wildlife) and the bodies or behaviors of racialized subjects

(Ritvo 12127; Pratt 20813). W. E. B. DuBois denounces post-Reconstruction industrial schools that failed to treat African Americans as more than meat (94), leaving them in a

tertium quid between human beings and cattle (89). Ngg wa Thiongo recounts that punishment in British schools for speaking Gikuyu included wearing a sign declaring, I AM A

DONKEY (Language 437). Frantz Fanon describes the rejection of animalization as a basis of national consciousnes s among colonized peoples (who ironically declare their humanity

with a roar): When the colonist speaks of the colonized he uses zoological terms. . . . This explosive popu lation growth, those hysterical masses, those blank faces, those shapeless,

obese bodies, this headless, tailless cohort, these children who seem not to belong to anyone, this indolence sprawling under the sun, this vegetating existence, all is part of the colonial

vocabulary. . . . The colonized knowall that and roar with laughter every time they hear themselves called an animal by the other. For

they know that they are not animals. And at the very moment when they discover their humanity, they

begin to sharpen their weapons to secure its victory . (78) Feminist theory has analyzed the animalization ofwomens bodies since the 1970s, and black feminist theorists argued more specifically that the objectification and hypersexualization of

black womens bodies were central to the maintenance of larger racial formations (hooks 62). Unfortunately extending the

conflation of race and species, animal studiesoften assimilates racial discourse into species

discourse, flattening out historical contexts that determine the differential use of animal (and

other) figures in the processes of racialization. Even some of the fields more nuanced accounts of

racialization assimilate race critique into species critique, taking animalization as the generic basis

of racism.Cary Wolfes often insightful study Animal Rites contends that an anthropocentric species discourse

underlies racisms conditions of possibility (167). Wolfe dismisses Homi Bhabha and Toni Morrison for failing to

address animals, rejecting their failed postmodern pluralism and lack of interest in justice for

the animal(79). Such arguments risk perversely suggesting that because race and postcolonial critics possess special insight into the

violence of humanism, they have a unique responsibility to speak for animals.5 Wolfe resists simplistic comparisons of

racial and species violence that continue to aboundin animal studies and mainstream animal activism;6 still,animalization theorists like Fanon open more direct avenues for a cultural critique that holds race and species as intersecting yet discrete

aspects of identity.

The perm fails-Dont fall for the affirmatives enlightened anthropocentrismtheir

paternalistic politics ensures the colonization of the nonhumanDomanska, 10(Ewa, Assoctiate professor of theory and history or historigophy at Adam Mickiewicz Univ, visiting associate prof dept of Anthro @ Stanford,

Beyond Anthropocentrism in Historical Studieshttp://www.nnet.gr/historein/historeinfiles/histvolumes/hist10/historein10-domanska.pdf

[10/24/11])

More and more, the humanities are extending their debates about identity, alterity and exclusion to

encompass nonhuman entities: animals, plants and things. The other is understood not only assomething of a different race, gender, class, sexual or religious orientation, but also someone or

something of a different species and organic status (e.g., something inorganic). Studying various figurations of subjectivity, we may noticethat the conventional criteria based on the cultural and social understanding of the subject an d the dualist, hierarchical thinking in terms of the organic/ inorganic and

human/nonhuman28 have become insufficient, while the popular vision of constructivism, which conceives of race, ge nder and other aspects of identity a s products of culture, limits

the scope of humanistic research. For example, environmental historian Donald Worster has indicated that the unexamined cult ural determinism which underlies mainstream

historiography is just as problematic as any other type of determinism.29 Ted Steinberg, in a les s avant-garde mode, complains that, among such historical categories as race, class,

gender, ethnicity and sexuality, environment is ne ver mentioned.30 Perhaps we should transgress the cultural determinism of the dominant versions of constructivism in a situation in

which the interactions between humans and nonh umans and the boundaries of species identity have become major problems in the human sciences. For example, there are currently

many discussions on the return to things.31 It does not mean, of course, that things have been totally neglected by histori ans. On the contrary, the study of things is the principal task

of the history of material culture. Nonetheless, as I have mentioned above, there is a challenge to find a way of moving beyond both the positivistic description of things and the

semiotic approach to the thing as text, symbol or metaphor. Narrativism and textualism dematerialised things by comparing the thing to the text and research to reading, and by

perceiving the thing as a message or sign. In an attempt to reverse those negative tendencies, new material studies point t o the agency of things, accentuating the fact that things not

only exist but also act and have performative potential.32 Of course, the notion of the agency of things does not mean that things

have intentions, but that they enjoy a particular status in their relations with people.33 For scholarsinspired by Marcel Mauss idea of the gift, thing s have a socialising function: they solidify interpersonal relations and they participate in

the creation of human identity at the individual and collective levels and mark its changes. Todays prevailing approach tononhumans in terms of their alterity (animals, plants and things considered as others) is

conservative rather than progressive. It remains within the anthropocentric humanities; within

enlightened anthropocentrism. This approach might also be called paternalism since it

presupposes a hegemonic attitude towards nonhuman others. It still implies human mastery and

relations of hierarchy but presumes a certain responsibility not only towards other humans but

also towards nonhuman beings. In this approach, people act on behalf of nonhumans thereby fulfilling

a protective contract.34 Such an approach still promotes a colonising discourse in which the
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nonhuman is treated as the fragile and victimised other in a vein similar to that of women,

children and the disabled. This approach leads to a radical personification of animals, plants and things and confirms theperception that treating things and animals like people is a way to readdress questions about the human condition. However, even within

the conventional framework of humanistic research, to pose the problem of a nonhuman subject means to challenge the anthropocentric

position, and thus make the first step towards stopping the anthropogenetic or anthropological machine to use Giorgio Agambens

term.35


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NR Overview

The aff is anthropocentric- their faith in the progressive nature of their project a prioriexcludes the non-human and leads to a view of the individual that makes the

exploitation of nature inevitable-in the context of compulsory voting this would mean

to create an implicit us versus them dichotomy where our human citizens are given

voting protections but other populations are excluded-thats Bell and Russell

Independently, the affs silence on the non-human is a loaded presencetheir

forgetting of the non-human world augments anthropocentric power relationsthis

greases the wheels of the war machine and drives the exclusion of populations based

on race, ethnicity, and gender and turns their impactsthats Bell, Russell, and Kochi.A few global arguments

Critical impact framing argumentevaluate impact solvency solely on who solves the

root cause betterfocus on proximate causes attacks the symptoms, not the disease

which replicates all their harmsthe alternative solves the root cause better because

it eradicates the foundations for dominate power relationsthats Best and Shaw and

Wong.

The alternative solvesadopting an animal standpoint epistemology opens human

understanding to larger issues that liberates the animal oppressed and paves the way

for aff solvencythats Best.

Sequencingadopting an animal starting point paves the way for solving race, gender,

and ethnic issues like the affthats Best.

Must vote negd-ruleBest, 10Associate Professor of Humanities and Philosophy at the University of Texas at El Paso (S teven, 12/31/10, Total Liberation:Revolution for the 21


KONTOPOULOS)

Progressives fighting for peace, justice, democracy, autonomy, and ecology must acknowledge thevalidity of and need for the animal liberation movement for two reasons. First, on a moral level, the

brutalization, exploitation, and suffering of animals is so great, so massive in degree and scope,

that it demands a profound moral and political response from anyone with pretence to values of

compassion, justice, rights, and nonviolence. Every year humans butcher 70 billion land and marine animals for food;millions more die in experimental laboratories, fur farm, hunting preserves, and countless other killing zones.
http://drstevebest.wordpress.com/2010/12/31/total-liberation-revolution-for-the-21st-century-4/http://drstevebest.wordpress.com/2010/12/31/total-liberation-revolution-for-the-21st-century-4/http://drstevebest.wordpress.com/2010/12/31/total-liberation-revolution-for-the-21st-century-4/


9/12

The K is a pre-requisite to their affwithout the K they cant solveBest, 10Associate Professor of Humanities and Philosophy at the University of Texas at El Paso (Steven, 12/31/10, Total Liberation:Revolution for the 21


KONTOPOULOS)

Second, on a strategic level, the animal liberation movement is essential for the human and earth

liberation movements. In numerous key ways, the domination of humans over animals underlies the

domination of human over human and propels the global ecological crisis. There cannot be

revolutionary changes in ethics, psychology, society, and ecology without engaging animal

liberation. It is becoming increasingly clear that human, animal, and earth liberation movements

are inseparably linked, such that none can be free until all are free. This is not a new insight, but rather a lostwisdom and truth. Recall the words of Pythagoras, who 2500 years ago proclaimed: For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill

each other. Indeed, he who sows the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love. A vital task of our time is to underst and the full

import of this insight.


10/12

AT: Animals Have No Reason/Language

1. This isnt a justification for the actions against them.

2. Their argument proves ourstheir inability to recognize animals autonomy

reproduces the same mentality their aff criticizes.

3. This same logic justifies the worst atrocities and turns the affBest, 10Associate Professor of Humanities and Philosophy at the University of Texas at El Paso (Steven, 12/31/10, Total Liberation:Revolution for the 21


KONTOPOULOS)

It has escaped the attention of the entire Left that the arguments they use to justify human

domination over animalsthat animals allegedly lack reason and languagewere the samearguments used by imperialists when they slaughtered native peoples and male oppressors when

they exploited women. Humanists upholding speciesist views, therefore, ironically reinforcetheir own

domination and cannot access the animal standpoint to understand the origins of domination,

and so are in no position to advance a viable politics of liberation.

4. They dojust because its not a human language doesnt disprove they do, thats

like saying a group of people dont have a language because it isnt the one you speak.


11/12

AT: Permutation

They conceded multiple links from the 1NCthe aff deliberately chose to ignore thenon-human world, which perpetuates an anthropocentric understanding of the world

and results in the worst atrocities that turn the aff and undermine perm solvency

thats Bell and Russell, Kochi, and Best.

The aff is a step in the exact opposite direction-expanding rights of humans furthers

the gap of separation of political consideration between humans and non humans.

Its not enough that they just say they wish to integrate their leftist project with ours,

they need a piece of evidence saying that their project would allow ours to succeed

all of our link arguments prove that their political project will just push ours to the

side.

You cant capture solvency for the alternative- your activation of agency is predicated

on the same formation of the human-centered individual that is indistinct from the

anthropocentric logic of the squo. The alternative is not an embracement of agency

but a loss of identity, that of the human, which is critical to transformation of our

relations to the animals and nature

Their epistemology is incompatible with the alternativeturns the caseBest, 10Associate Professor of Humanities and Philosophy at the University of Texas at El Paso (Steven, 12/31/10, Total Liberation:Revolution for the 21


KONTOPOULOS)

It has escaped the attention of the entire Left that the arguments they use to justify human

domination over animalsthat animals allegedly lack reason and languagewere the same

arguments used by imperialists when they slaughtered native peoples and male oppressors when

they exploited women. Humanists upholding speciesist views, therefore, ironically reinforcetheir

own domination and cannot access the animal standpoint to understand the origins of

domination, and so are in no position to advance a viable politics of liberation.


12/12

Sequencing DAadopting an animal starting point paves the way for solving race,

gender, and ethnic issues like the affthats Best.

The perm fails-the attempt to embrace animals flattens out difference as the specifics

of species based oppression are cast aside- this anthropocentric move disables the

ability of the affirmative to empower the non-human-Ahuja says that what happens iswhen we integrate specieism into other forms of oppression then specieism is gutted

out in favor of human first oppression problem solving-resulting in the initial problem.

The perm fails-Dont fall for the affirmatives enlightened anthropocentrismtheir

paternalistic politics ensures the colonization of the nonhuman-Domanska says it

presupposes a hegemonic attitude towards the nonhuman others-its the same thing

as what happened to women and children, wed be condescending and treat them as

fragile, victimized and in need of our protection-culminating in the consolidation of

power to humans.

Documents

Anthro K SeptOct 2013