Can you think without your professor?

Can you think without your professor?

The academic discussion about animal concerns and where they meet human interests, is so detached from the reality of Animal Rights, that the discourse of these kind of animal ethicists seems in the core substance no more but a blast of sophist lapses branching out on a subject matter here only for secondary purposes but not because of Animal Rights themselves. What I think of are the heady discussions lead academically on the subjects of speciesism and anthropocentrism. Things may sound good, yet little way is given to nonhuman Animal Rights terms which would leave space for a nonhuman animal autonomy protecting against the human definition of “self” and “other”.

If we had a similar phenomenon in the academic discussion in regards to Human Rights, we would find ourselves in a futuristic soulless science fiction setting, where humans are no more but calculable sources to serve the interest of a hole.

The terms needed for and relevant to Animal Rights become politically practically useless when taken only to their abstract side and not to the side where a term is instilled with the aspects relating to the practical side of life – life’s daily political questions, that are concerned with environmental questions and the questions relating to Animal Rights concerns.

The worst form of an abstraction would be to go back to point zero and ask: what are Animal Rights again and which animals should have what exact rights. From an Animal Rights standpoint we take Animal Rights as a given ethical imperative and prerequisite. Similar to the understanding of RIGHT in Human Rights, my right is not dependent on any holy issue or on any group’s decision to grant me rights or even on the evolutionary side of being a humanoid. The sheer fact of existence grants the right that will take its own shape in the individual, and of course rights do conflict, and still we should try to live peacefully if we want to or if we can.

Political Animal Rights

So far we haven’t gained as much and enough political momentum as is needed in the inner national and supra-national political settings that constitute themselves with the political party systems, umbrella orgs, lobbyism driven by economical factors, NGOs, philanthropists and yes even grassroots work that we do in our communities directly or over the internet.

To rely on the possibility that academic discussion would take us any further with the needed political momentum for the Animal Rights movement, and how general society perceives the question of Animal Rights and how AR can go together with Human Rights, will be a long and disappointing wait.

Academia coins terms, but these terms become shallow after they go through the entire digestive system of the typical academic brain.

Which terms would we need, however?

We need to fill the space of the Animal Rights discussion basically with the same soul, with the same concern, idea, words, deeds …  such as we apply to our own concerns. Theories have their good, but the practice of life that in the end of the day makes up our political side of life, needs the individual strength of thought and deed.

We are able to talk about our own concerns, and we are also able to talk about the concerns of our fellow animal friends.

Never rebut an enlightened anthropos – how dare you!

Why it is amazing how Animal Rights sets ITSELF on the right fundament. No question that it does exactly that, Animal Rights is a story, dynamic in itself.

However some birthhelpers who are perhaps a couple of eons too late are fighting for their new inventions of the wheel notwithstanding. Ok, what I’m talking about is the question of the futile fight of humans against their own perpetually continued ANTHROPOCENTRISM.

A lot of focus is currently set by the AR community on just that impotant question, which is good and a thing to do overdue because it helps you see reality clearer. Reality about the political implications of Animal Rights for Human Rights and Earth Rights mostly, I believe.

But what exactly is anthropocentrism?

Also … Why is a term chosen that strictly seems to omit the animal nature connection as the KEY point and only focuses on the human towards animal relation in a critical way though. What about that, what completely stands out of the reach of us the anthropos??? Ok, so we see the question at stake here is the perspective, we want to avoid looking at the world from a strictly homocentric viewpoint. But how far do we have to go with that.

I was recently criticised for criticising an AR advocate who is against anthropocentrism and who claims that Animal Rights find a reasonable argument in the similarities between beings – humans and nonhuman animals that is. This is an old string of argumentation when animal acvocacy issues are being discussed. But: do we want to land at comparative studies where we check one brain against the other to find out how much rights you should be entitled to be granted? Well, the amount of speciesism in the enlightened field of AR advocates is just plain tiresome. I just stop this rant at this point and ask you to continue it on your own behalf if you will.

PETITION, URGENT: Help End the Use of Cows and Pigs at the California State Fair Nursery Exhibit

Help End the Use of Cows and Pigs at the California State Fair Nursery Exhibit

In 2010, a pregnant Holstein cow escaped her pen during the California State Fair. State Fair police chased the frightened animal down in a large SUV. They shot her multiple times, killing her. The cow was part of the Nursery Exhibit, in which heavily pregnant cows, pigs, sheep, and goats give birth in front of an audience … READ MORE ABOUT THIS CASE AND PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION.

to impose a state of being “as if” parasitical

Human societies impose a state of being “as if” parasitical onto nonhuman animals, simply by claiming nature to be a resource ”exclusively usable” by humans. Nature is seen as a resource existent to serve human needs and desires, to be exploited. Nature is not regarded as an animal habitat with its animal inhabitants, etc.

By living out this attitude and worldview of: “subject the earth to your will and exploit it to your needs”, nonhuman animals are automatically put either into the position of being degradable and exploitable, subjectable, or they are seen as parasitical, just barely allowed to enter the human garden eden, so one could say.

This is a long subject and it came to my mind quite clearly today … ,so, well I wanted to quickly note it down. I am gonna write more about this angle of homocentrism later, of course.

Homocentrism makes blind to perspectives that don’t serve the “human interest”.

 

An end to philosophical validity can lie in what we perceive to be reality

The human continuum with its cultural values is not necessarily one, and can’t necessarily be unified with its diverseness.

Every individual has the right to hold her or his own views.

Thus I can be for Animal Rights INASMUCH as I can be for Human Rights, for example.

No philosophical school can propose me their argumentation as valid IF it asks me to see nonhuman animals other than I see them now as an Animal Rights person.

Philosophy should stay out of attributing different “life forms” with their labels of value or meaning.

Otherwise philosophy becomes as bad as how religions function – as doctrines based on belief. Homoncentrists believe that nonhuman animal life matters less than human life,  and they believe that the world relevant to nonhuman animals and the systems meaningful to nonhuman animals life must not be regarded as a complete world in its own rights in their own terms.

What about the cult of flesh

What about the cult of flesh

It seems to be enough today to eat veggies for a day or adopt the vegan or vegetarian lifestyle for a period of time and then go round pose as a post-vegan informer of a real truth about “meat”-eating or hunting or any other speciesist and non-vegan-compatible action.

When we think about the ideally vegan world, with a vegan society, and I really mean a society with society here, then we don’t think about the ideology of speciesism and how that is installed in our societies, most likely anywhere today on the globe.

Veganism is a moral education to some extent, but morals don’t create legally binding rules.

If human rights were dependent on the moral understanding of people alone, we’d still have torture and killing all around pretty much I think. We as ethical vegans should not overlook the dangers of speciesism. When we ask people to go vegan, we should bear in mind that the “habit” of “meat”-eating didn’t start just because the humans of the past just happened to be speciesist. The human past evolved from being speciesist to still being speciesist exactly on the grounds of held views, beliefs, attitudes, thoughts, philosophies.

Changing the lifestyle only does not go deep enough. One or more thousand years of deeply embedded ways of thinking within a society have to be changed, both on the individual and on the societal level. And the tragic thing with speciesism is, that humans built their understanding of what humanity means mainly on the basis of considering nonhuman animal life as a “lower” life form in a comparative measure to their own life form of being > HOMO SAPIENS.

What we as ethically driven vegans are asking for is a revolution. This encompasses a change in behaviour most of all firstly, but inasmuch it needs a change in thinking – well of course! And that’s where the question about what that cult of flesh is sets in.

I recently had this short exchange on diaspora that I want to close this blog entry with. It’s about just some examples of vegans-turned-animalkiller.

a happy 2012

this year is gonna be amazing. AR is strong and will get even stronger. Veganism is a must by now, yeah and even the moral “musts” take till they take over a world with 7 billion humans. This is no utopic talk, this is the evolution of revolution … .

A HAPPY AND CREATIVE 2012 TO ALL THE GOOD MINDED FRIENDS

the ethics of food : eating : what’s wrong with vegan convenience foods?

Vegan convenience foods are a nice starter for anybody who wants to turn planty in their eating behaviour. But in the long run I assume that any vegan person will find out about the limitations of a dependency on ready-made foods.

First: preparing foods is an important part of learning about foods and their nutritional values.
Secondly, vegan foods should be affordable; a lot of those nice and tasty convenience foods tend to cost more than we should or can spend on our daily eating habits.

If we want to inform others about our vegan lifestyle, we should keep in mind that many people can’t spend tons of money on foods and we should gain ourselves and pass on an informed healthy eating plan.

I myself just started a recipe site, mainly cos of the reason that I want to spread the idea of understanding vegan cooking as something basic and healthy in it’s very straight and pure form.

Learning how to use herbs and spices, using staple foods to get the right nutritional benefits that a vegan diet should ideally entail. Learning about how to prepare foods in a reasonable way, that’s what i think needs some focus.

My recipe site is in German (the link to it is on the right sidebar), but maybe some of you guys get the idea also and share it.

Finally:

some people think they should put as much money as possible into supporting vegan products and companies. Sure, but supporting sanctuaries still ought to have the highest priority before anything else.

universities – ‘institutionalized’ thinking

Universities – ‘institutionalized’ thinking


Why criticize universities, they are the only real location where you can develop your free thinking together with others on an intelligent and sensible plane … ???

The reality of universities is more than an ambiguous one. Hanging between reasonable discourse and hierarchical oppression. Language, logics, proof, deduction, induction, theories, argumentation, discussions cloak so many truths unspoken of.

Without the noble and legitimate dress

a naked truth glimpses through, that seeks to escape another type of truth. One that you can only find in the nightlight, within the space inbetween being and notbeing.

… but compassion

compassion

is not something
that’s FELT from a higher position up

imagine your are in a prison
feeling compassion for your tortured co-inmate

you feel her/his pain, because you
understand
You KNOW their pain.

when I feel sorrow for somebody I can’t understand, then my understanding might stay on the level of only feeling pity for somebody who suffers an injustice or fate that I wouldn’t want to suffer. I stay distanced to him or her.

when I feel the PANGS of compassionate feelings, that only those kinds of feelings can produce, then an understanding must have preceded this emotional response in me.

 

Annoyances / Hi Diary Dec 2011

Annoyances

Vegans that travel the world to live their veganism globally. Reminds me a bit of a mixture between CEO’s and missionaries.

Academic arrogance. Thinking within the borders of what previous scholars have researched. Academia doesn’t keep up with naming the modern phenomena in any field. I am mostly thinking about the environment homocentrism context here. Another thing is Academia assumes that humans outside of their brainy world, can not think or reason properly. Reminds me of the pharisees as how described in the new testament (always sticking to the written word).

Vegan sectarianism is also a current hot iron. Vegan stupidity. Meat eaters stupidity. Speciesism where it goes unnoticed or noticed.

Just all around.

One has to put things into their right contexts or, one has to set things straight for oneself.

All included

the political ramifications of:

what I say, whereever I happen to be
what I do where I am
how i decide, and how I come to a decision
how I influence my environment posivitely

You say that only politcal parties are political?
I say:

whatever you do, and whatever I do
has political ramifications
on the grassroots level
no matter what

It depends on what you consider “political” to be.

The plane in life of deeds and words is a large and impactful one.

Academia Lost

Knowledge that circles round

Some take separate terms, and build a logic simply on these terms as pillars. But in reality nothing is so separate that it should become a carrying pillar. The building risks to stand on the wrong pillars.

To avoid being a bad constructor I want to acknowledge how each phenomenon becomes explicable only in the entireness of its “environment”!

Highlighting a few terms out as central “pillars” of my argumentation – around which all other relevant aspects have to settle themselves – lets me build a roof upon this construct, that seems logical in itself. But again, the fullness of life does not work itself in any fully contrivable logics.

A logic that lies within “something” is not mirrored in a logic contrived by my singling out some of its aspects and sticking them together so that they fit … .

When I want to prove how knowledgeable I am however, I can’t really leave my argumentation a lot of space to breathe. Everything has to be waterproof, for no leaks to let fallacies to become instantaneously visible. My opponent can rebut me.

No this circle of yay and nay just wastes a lot of time. And it is possible to differentiate within more or less fully integral settings.

Why Suckerberg is a speciesist? Cos there are too many of them

Why AR people in particular should not use Facebook and start using Diaspora

A person doesn’t even have to have a “typical” blemish on his track record in regards to human rights or environmental issues to be proven on the wrong side of morality.

Being a pronounced speciesist is a problem that should make us AR people take a decision on such a morally vain person, especially if the person even acts up upon his or her speciesist attitudes and actually engages in harming and/or killing nonhuman animals.

Facebook makes politics with the individual image of it’s founder Suckerberg. And exactly that’s why you should take his “personal activities” serious enough to leave the services of his company FB alone, if you were ever on there or freeze your usage of it down to a minimum.

Suckerberg stands for the individual that explicitly socially lives out our commonday societal collective egotism. And he is hiped exactly for this. Socially shared egotism is the “social” phenomenon that FB triggered most predominantly. (Someone rightly noted that FB tuned the term “to LIKE something” into a useless word, an interesting observation about the warped psychology of Facebook and its users.)

UPC’s Karen Davis has written about Suckerbergs speciesism and she sheds a light on the gruesomeness of his stance towards nonhuman animals life:

http://www.upc-online.org/thinking/110613only_connect.html

Both, our views on the world based on an abstract scientifically led philosophy of life-as-a-whole and otherwise also our religiously influenced views, they both fail to allow a non-homoncentric approach towards our co-species. If a person is set within either a biologically driven view or stands in a religious tradition of one of the abrahamic religions at least, we can probably not expect him or her to understand more of the world than that it should be subjugated to what we suppose to be the human concern. This is a gigantic problem.

(Also, a person being rich and enormously skilful in these our societies, does not prove for this person not to be a whackjob at the most important moral concerns.)

Well, and for the sake of it, let’s take a look at Suckerbergs human rights track anyway. In which way is FB involved in human rights violations “indirectly” …

This video by http://craig-antweiler.com gives you an overall idea

Diaspora* Next Online Revolution

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4mMSxWEnjU

To close this, see the Diaspora creators and join a pod or set a branch up yourself

the privacy aware, personally controlled, do-it-all distributed open source social network

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqxQgfQD24M

Vegan? Anregung zu Denken

This is an ink drawing I made with a super tiny fine liner, the drawing has an original size of A3. This scan has been taken from a postcard that I had printed of the drawing. I will set up an online shop asap, where I will offer thing like these.

Dowload dieses Textes als PDF : keim_veganer_denkanstoss

Vegan? Anregung zu Denken

Vegan zu leben, schlägt sich nicht nur nieder auf die Art wie ich mich ernähre, auf das was ich konsumiere. Die praktischen Implikationen der Lebensweise bieten allerdings den Schlüssel, mit dem ich mir die ethischen Hintergründe erschließe. Dem sei auch beigefügt, dass wenn es überhaupt keinen eigenen Begriff für die vegane Lebensweise gäbe, diese Art der Lebensweise aber nichtsdestotrotz sowohl einen ethisch-praktischen Aspekt abdeckt, als auch einen ethischen Gedanken. Das Denken stellt schließlich den Ausgangspunk eines ethisch motivierten Handelns dar.

Wir erfahren nun immer mehr über die Seite des Veganismus in Hinsicht auf das, was ich tun kann, das was mich als Handelnden involviert. Die Frage die ich hier aber stellen möchte, ist die danach welche gedanklichen Bausteine sich eigentlich hinter der Praxis verbergen, denn diese bilden das Fundament auf dem auch Andere den ethischen Veganismus verstehen lernen können.

Das Wort „Vegan“ ist nicht alles wovon wirklich alles abhängen muss. Wir begegenen vergleichbaren Lebensweise in anderen Kulturen und anderen Zeitabschnitten der Geschichte. Der ethische Kern gleicht einer Bewegung die jahrtausende fast wortlos überlebt hat. Nur teilweise finden wir die wesentlichen Beweggründe expliziert durchfomuliert. Das Verhältnis Mensch-Tier birgt ein gigantisches Spannungsfeld in sich. Nichtmenschliche Tiere haben anders „evolutioniert“ als Menschen. Seit jeher betrachtete sich der Mensch wahrscheinlich als Krone der Schöpfung, und Tiere wurden und werden am eigenen Maßstab gemessen. Das Denksystem erweitere sich, was die ethische Einbeziehung der Tiere anbetrifft, wenn dann zumeist aus altruitsischen Gründen. Die Tierwelt bleibt dem Menschen in ihrer eigenen Intergrität aber ein Mysterium.

Wir alle haben eine mehr oder weniger unausgeprochene Beziehung zu Tieren, die sich in unserer praktisch gelebten Einstellung gegenüber Tieren ausdrückt. Der Begriff Speziesismus weist auf die Negativ-Form der Mensch-Tier Beziehung hin. Dieser Begriff gibt aber auch Aufschluss über die Gegensätzlichkeit im Denken über Tiere.

Die Tierwelt an sich und das, wie wir sie im ganzen Welt- und Naturgeschehen am besten lokalisieren sollten (insbesondere in ihren großen Zusammnehängen mit der natürlichen Umwelt) ist sprachlich von uns noch nicht in einen Rahmen gesetzt worden. Diese Materie kann auch nur schwerlich besprochen werden, wenn die Gesellschaft sich über den eigenen Anthropozentrismus (Biologismus) nicht hinausbwegen will.

Eine vegane Ethik sollte sich idealerweise mit der Thematisierung der Probleme in der Mensch-Tier Beziehung auseinandersetzen. Die eigenen Gedanken zu äußern, spielt hier den entscheidenden Faktor.

Vegane Politik, die grassroots Ebene

Handeln ist politisch, jede Handlung steht in einer Beziehung zur Umwelt. Meine privaten Entscheidungen sind Hebel, die im öffentlichen Raum irgendwetwas betätigen. Auch das, wie ich mich äußere gegenüber Freunden, meiner Familie, unter Kollegen, auf einem Blog, egal wo, greift in das allgemeine Geschehen mit ein. Oft schließen sich Menschen mit ihrer Meinung zu einer größeren Gruppe zusammen, weil sie dadurch meinen „might makes right“ – was Alle denken, ist auch richtig. Was natürlich falsch ist! Die größte Macht hat ein Denken, das sich auf Wahrheitssuche begibt. Denn solch ein Denken richtet sich an dem aus, was ist in der Welt, und nicht an dem, was heute gerade angesagt ist.

Thesen zum Mensch-Tier geflecht sollten ihren Ausdruck finden in allen Themenbereichen, die sich in diesem Bezug äußern können. Aber auch ausserwissenschatlich sollte jeder, der sich mit Ethik, Menschen und deren Beziehung zu Tieren befasst, sich äußern, eigene Gedanken formulieren und damit zum Teil der täglichen Diskussion machen. Das geht natürlich in allen expressiven Bereichen: Kunst, Musik, Dichtung, Design … . All das, wo der Mensch eine Rolle spielt, kann genau auch der Raum sein, in dem Tiere und die Natur anerkannt und respektiert werden.

Eine zenrale Frage, die allerdings eher die Zukunft der Tierrechtspolitik bestimmen wird, ist die Frage: Wie verhalten sich unsere Einstellung zur natürlichen Umwelt und die Lebensformen nichtmenschlicher Tiere und derer Verhalten im natürlichen Raum zueinander?

Was für uns jetzt als vegan lebende Menschen wichtig ist, ist es eine innere Spaltung unserer pionierhaften Bewegung durch die Abhängigkeit vom Begriff „Vegan-ismus“ zu vermeiden. Denn die Gefahr, dass der Begriff kommerziell funktionalisiert wird und damit als ein Tool zur kommunikativen Gestaltung unserer Gesellschaft wegschrumpt, ist groß. Genauso sollte man sich nicht irritieren lassen durch die Risiken von Gruppendynamiken, die in jeder Bewegung auftreten. In jeder Gruppe geht der Einzelne unter; außer denen, die den Ton angeben wollen.

Der Begriff „Vegan“ ist ein Tool um einen Gedanken zu verbreiten.

Resume

Veganismus ist eine bewegliche Sache, eine Praxis ist damit bezeichtet. Das Denken aber dazu, das sich dahiner verbirgt, ist reich und frei. Wir alle füllen die Denkwelt, die uns in andere Verbindungen zur Tierwelt und unsere gemeinsamen Welt setzt. Und unsere Kreativität kann zeigen, was wir alles schon schaffen zu formulieren.

Ein Keimling, 30 November 2011

Dolphins die after techno rave party permitted at Connyland dolphinarium in Lipperswil, Switzerland

The Connyland dolphinarium in Lipperswil is the only remaining dolphinarium in Switzerland. Please ask for the closure of this dolphinarium!

Two dolphins were found dead following a rave at Connyland. The Swiss marine park had initially been accused of killing Shadow and Chelmers by allowing a deafening two-day rave to be held just a few yards from the dolphins’ pool. Campaigners had warned that the dolphins could be affected by holding the event so close to the pool, yet the authorities went ahead with the rave. Animal activists from ProWal and The Whale and Dolphin Protection Society recorded noise levels of over 100 decibels outside the park, well within earshot of the dolphins. According to Andreas Morlok from Prowal, this is comparable with that of a pneumatic drill on top volume. It has now been suggested that the dolphins may have been drugged and poisoned by ravers.

Please sign this petition: http://www.change.org/petitions/dolphins-die-after-rave-at-connyland