I subscribe to an e-mail group called A.Word.A.Day. The idea is simple. Each day you are sent a new item of vocabulary from the English language, with quotes and background. I recommend it. And, Sesame Street was brought to you today, by the word 'speciesism'. I reproduce the e-mail here:
speciesism (SPEE-shee-ziz-uhm, -see-ziz-uhm) noun
The assumption of superiority of humans over other animal species, especially to justify their exploitation.
[Coined by psychologist Richard D. Ryder (born 1940) in 1973. From Latin species (appearance, kind, form), from specere (to look). Ultimately from the Indo-European root spek- (to observe) which is also the ancestor of such words as suspect, spectrum, bishop (literally, overseer), espionage,despise, telescope, spectator, and spectacles.]
"At one point in Darwin's voyage to South America, James Moore told me, the naturalist stopped in Brazil, where his blood ran cold to see slaves in manacles being tortured by Catholic traders. Darwin was enraged as a Christian, but also as a scientist, because he recognized that the slave trade relied on the false notion that slaves were a different, inferior and exploitable species.
"Upon his return to England, Darwin extended the idea to the way people treated animals, an early precursor to Richard Dawkins's argument about speciesism. 'To say man is the pinnacle of creation and all things were created for him … Darwin says that is the same arrogance we see in the slave master,' said Moore."
Shankar Vedantam; Eden and Evolution; Washington Post; Feb 5, 2006.
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It is, indeed.
sounds very interesting! 🙂
A bit like a president of the country treating the country as his own personal property instead of serving the country as is his responsibility. God gave man dominion over the animals so that we could preserve and protect animals not to exploit animals. (my opinion at least )
Yes. I wouldn’t argue with that, really, although I think that words can make a difference, as they contain values, judgements and so on, so, for instance, you could say that we have been given a custodial role, rather than one of dominion. By which I mean, dominion, or domination, seems to be unsustainable anyway. I’ve been thinking about this clip recently, from a chap called Stephen Holman:http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=1485988481I'm not sure you can view it if you’re not a Myspace member. I hope you can. Anyway, I’ve been thinking vaguely of doing a post about it, and about the idea of what is ‘natural’.
In the clip, he talks about ‘evil’ not being an unnatural trait, but a kind of malfunctioning survivalist trait. He makes the argument that the right wing is more attached to the animal, survivalist instincts. Nothing wrong with that, in a sense, he says. It’s natural. But, he favours, and thinks it’s best for all to develop ‘human’ qualities, which are not entirely survivalist. I like the clip, and it’s interesting and thought-provoking, and I even agree with it on the whole. But I’m not sure about the human/animal dichotomy. I think there are examples in nature, for instance, of symbiosis, generosity, all sorts of things other than just ‘dog eat dog’. But I might go into this in more detail later.”Religion and science don’t always agree but bad people always choose to interpret both according to what suits them best.”Yes, I agree.
Unfortunately I’m a phonie, so I can only view 3gp clips. :awww: .But it all boils down to doing the right thing anyway. Why did Noah take animals into the ark if not to preserve them? Religion and science don’t always agree but bad people always choose to interpret both according to what suits them best. Hence the reason some people say that global warming is not a problem and not even caused by human activities despite all the evidence to the contrary.