Witness the world through a screen

Over the spring break I've been watching a lot of documentaries about different social, environmental, political and economic issues. For me personally, the most powerful moments in each film came when I witnessed (if only through a screen) the undeniably real images and sounds that primary source (or firsthand, unmediated by intrusive editing or narration) footage offers. These emotional, educational, inspirational moments have included seeing insects stoically endure a brutal rainfall, US soldiers shoot endless rounds at invisible enemies, humans speak with raw clarity during interviews, and in general, human and nonhuman animals suffering, enduring, learning, fighting and dying.

This last sentence might make my journey through documentaries seem kind of dark and morbid - and it has been - but life on this planet is frequently sad and always strange. We need to see reality in order to react properly to the problems it presents us. Though mediated through a screen and a narrative, the realities and problems documentaries present us can become powerful, intimately profound experiences that demand a reaction.

But before you check out the following movies, have you watched EARTHLINGS yet? If not, do it. Seriously, DO IT NOW.

Anima Mundi

This is an excerpt from the film by Godfrey Reggio, director of Koyaanisqatsi. With music by Philip Glass. You can watch the half hour long experimental documentary here.

The Witness

Watch The Witness online

Microcosmos

Watch Microcosmos online

Industrial Food Animals: Perspectives

In any discussion of human and nonhuman animal relations, the topic of industrial meat production inevitably flares up (see the discussion under the "Who is an animal?" post). The food we eat can feel very personal to us - reflective of how we define our identity, social status, body image, cultural history and what is normal or ideal behavior. I think this is why discussions about eating animals often become so heated, with people entrenched in their viewpoint and unwilling to compromise. Though they might be necessary, I kind of hate these debates - there's always this assumption that there is a single moral truth to a complex situation that requires a certain kind of response, and that all other responses are irrational or pointless.

These videos don't necessarily reflect my viewpoint on these issues; I definitely disagree or feel unsure about several things they discuss. In general though, I do think that industrial meat production is environmentally devastating and normalizes structural violence as necessary to the functioning of society; veganism, vegetarianism, or just deciding not to buy industrially produced animal products seems to be the easiest, tastiest way for the individual human to take themselves out of cruel, ethically and environmentally destructive systems.

Check out these perspectives, and decide for yourself:

Critique of this blog

In preparing/writing a couple unpublished posts over the past week, I’ve felt increasingly frustrated with my approach – it’s significant contradictions and failings. I had planned on finishing these posts before getting into a critique of my blog, but I feel like I shouldn’t put it off any more. It’s not fair to my readers or myself; while I’m proud of some of the things I’ve created here, I have some serious problems with certain aspects of this venture. I need to address these issues before I can move to create a more constructive and engaging space.

Now, in a momentary extension of my problematic methodology, let’s classify the problems with writing this style of blog!

Classification

In my last post, I wrote that "the oppression and suffering that these binaries justify is caused as much by the privileging of one side as by the exclusionary, essentializing nature of categorizing an entity within a dualistic framework." While I try to avoid invoking binaries as much as possible, my technique for exposing ideological contradictions has relied on classifying aspects of Master Subject ideology into distinct, separate realms that can scrutinized and deconstructed (i.e. this is the Culture:Nature binary, this is human:animal, etc). This activity in itself is a huge contradiction - I claim that I want to escape the limiting worldview that classifications impose and then use a categorical methodology to explain why. 

... when this visualization better demonstrates the big picture 

My categorizations might seem like this...

My classification of the different manifestations of ideology relies on simplifying complex issues down to essential traits that can then be organized into a kind of taxonomy. When I present each binary as a distinct, definable category that we can label onto different visual and linguistic representations, I'm afraid that this disavows the unity of the Master Subject ideology. The binaries I present aren't solitary, fixed social constructs - rather, they are meant to be used as a framework for understanding how human activities and values are frequently justified with intricately interconnected dualisms. When analyzing some cultural object, you'll always find several intersecting and parallel binaries that reinforce each other. Why? Because binaries are just different semiotic manifestations of the same ideology of violence and alienation. For example, look at these shoes:

Conflating Femininity with body parts, animals, violence and death

So I'm afraid my classifications imply a more fragmented picture of ideology than I intend. But I'm also worried that I seem to be promoting universal moral categories when I generalize and use words like "violence" or even "apathy" (both words rely on arbitrary binaries after all - violence:nonviolence, apathy:activism - definitions of each serve the interests of the definer). Really, I think if we're going to place a moral judgment onto something, it should be individually contextually/historically analyzed rather than deductively weighed based on a set of rigid laws of proper behavior.


Still, I think that last sentence is itself a general moral category in its own way ("Though shall not classify universal values!"), so I'd like to contradict it while clearing up a related point. When I say we need to oppose violence and indifference, I don't mean that there is never a good reason or use for violence or apathy. Rather, I see structural violence - cruelty, suffering, domination and exploitation that is systematically perpetrated in order to perpetuate economic and social-political power - as fundamentally ethically wrong. I universally condemn the apathy towards structural violence (even as I recognize it in myself) because indifference towards reality translates into complicity with and direct economic/political support for abuse and exploitation. Apathy is absolutely necessary towards the continuation of structural violence; as such, it is itself a form of structural violence - hidden and passive - but nevertheless deeply alienating and ideologically reinforced. 

Okay, let's get back on course again. What are some other problems with this blog that I can categorize?

More Binaries and the Great Chain of Being

This post will be the last installment in the series on binary oppositions that basically began in the "Who is an animal?" post. If by now you're wondering how this has anything to do with animals (other than their symbolic uses by humans), I hope to clearly demonstrate by the end of this post how these dualisms intersect and structure an ideology of objectification and violence.

But first, let's dive into some more binaries!

Civilized:Primitive
The Civilized:Primitive binary is essentially the Culture:Nature division (discussed in the last post) applied to human social-political organization and interactions. Civilization connotes a human society in the most "advanced" stages of social, technological, moral, political and cultural development. Primitivity implies the regressed, stagnant state of the human in Nature, who subsists with crude tools and simple social organization.

The symbolism and logic of the human:animal binary informs the Civilized:Primitive divide. The human that is most Civilized is considered most human, most cultured and rational; the Primitive human is near-animal, in that she subsists through her Body's interaction with Nature. Civilized:Primitive relates to and relies on other binaries such as Developed:Developing, Modernity:Antiquity, Western:Nonwestern, Scientific:Superstitious, Progress:Stasis, Adult:Child.

WWII era propaganda poster. The Kultur of the German Brute is a Primitive
tool - heavy and blunt. His transgression of the civilized boundaries of
reason/sanity, violence, sexuality, and national sovereignty mean that
he is an animal. Accordingly, the US government endorses his destruction.

It's true that we frequently think of these terms, Primitive and Civilized, as endpoints on a spectrum or series of stages of societal development. However, in common language we rarely recognize the shades of gray - it is easier to label an area "first world" or "developing" than it is to precisely describe it's position on a continuum of progress. Even when sociologists do attempt to place different societies onto the imagined spectrum, they do so by categorizing individual traits of society within dualistic frameworks (i.e. "hunting-gathering is primitive"; "monumental architecture is civilized"; "more complexity means more civilization") and then synthesizing the whole and labeling it (much like the process I discuss in "A clarification of the human:animal binary").

The big problem here is that notions of progress and Civilization are entirely Eurocentric. The narrative of progress (the story of the evolution of man from animal Nature to the heights of Civilized Culture) was first told by those who saw themselves as at "the end of history": the enlightened European man. Thus, to be Civilized, to be modernized, meant to be Westernized, not only in technology and political organization, but in cultural values as well. The Europhilic ideal of Civilization has spread throughout the world by the violent networks of imperialism, and has been historically used to justify the systematic oppression and exploitation that supposedly Civilized nations brought to the Primitive.

I'm fascinated by how the history and ideology of imperialism resonates with human:animal ideology. Civilized nations saw themselves as inherently superior in intellect and ability to their Primitive counterparts, as humans frequently relate to other animals; in both cases, this supposition of superiority has been used as a justification for systematic violence and exploitation of technologically disadvantaged others. There is a massive contradiction here, when violence (which is typically considered a degraded, animal or Primitive activity) is perpetrated by the supposedly Civilized human.

Imperialist Discourses in Action: Notice the difference in representations of humans, animals, Nature, and Culture between the Google Image results for"travel Africa" and "travel Europe"What narratives do these images tell us about the types of civilization of each continent? Does these narratives accurately reflect or create difference?

Human:Animal, Mind:Body, Culture:Nature - Intersections Between Binaries

This post deals with intersections between the human:animal binary and other polarized ideals that humans use to understand and judge the world around them.

Just because these binaries are socially constructed does not mean they have no basis in reality, or are always destructive. Rather, they can be a useful tool for interpreting reality. However, they tend to reduce complex phenomena down to idealized essences that are more projections of the desires of the observer than they are reflections of the observed reality. Our modern conception of these binaries have their roots in Enlightenment European rationalism (with it's parallel questions of patriarchy, imperialism, race, human rights, scientific and technological development, notions of progress, etc) - as such, they have historically privileged propertied European male humans over all others, and been used to justify many forms of violence (slavery, colonialism, heteronormative sexism, ableism, war, genocide) against others.

It's hard to escape binaries, even when we recognize that they are limiting and destructive. They are so prevalent in our lives and ingrained in our education that they seem natural to human thinking. I certainly uphold them in this work - try to catch me when I do it.

Mind:Body

Midsaggital Slices by Gunter von Hagens

Rene Descartes (the "I think, therefore I am" guy) is considered a major proponent of this duality, which suggests that the Mind (along with the associated ideals of Thought, Language, Reason, Spirit, Superego the Mental) is separate and superior to the Body (along with its correlates - Emotion, Instinct, Sensation, Id, the Physical). Indeed, we often assume that the Mind is "the seat of the soul", the very essence and definition of the individual. On the other hand, the Body is merely a vessel or medium for expressing the Mind. The Body's needs and desires are rudimentary or even filthy (sleep, eating, sex, excretion) while the Mind aspires towards transcendence (through art, philosophy, science).

The Mind:Body duality informs the human:animal binary, and vice versa. The Mind, language, thought and logic are considered to reside exclusively in the realm of the human. Only humans think, and to think is to be human, and, moreover (following Descartes), to think as a human is to be. Meanwhile, the Body, with it's base urges and mechanical functioning, is animal; to be an animal, is to be a body without a mind. This is why when a human acts violently or sexually (both being physical, bodily activities), they can be labelled animalistic.

How is this binary reductive? Well, I think it's a bit silly to segment your being into dual, opposing parts. Your nervous system which creates your thoughts is part of your body, and actually spread throughout your body (not localized in the brain). The same physical system that creates the Mind also produces the irrational instincts, emotions and sensations of the Body. Furthermore, everything your body experiences - everything you eat, everything you sense, every moment of pain and pleasure in your life - fundamentally shapes your personality, your mindset, your system of reasoning.

The close association of Mind with human and Body with animal links mental control over the physical world with human domination over other animals. It arbitrarily designates thought as precondition for a life form to be considered an intrinsically valuable being. The problem with this is that Mind can only be conveyed through the physical actions of the Body (speech, writing, bodily expression); furthermore, we recognize that action represents thought only through the limits of our own sensory organs and culturally-determined cognitive processes. Thus, we have serious difficulties recognizing Mind in organisms with significantly different cultures and bodies. It is easier to project traits onto others than it is to self-consciously observe and reflect - this is why the Mind:Body dualism has been historically used to deny the value of peoples with different languages, women and dispossessed peoples without access to education, mentally atypical people and differently-abled people. The Mind:Body intersection with human:animal encourages the perception that animals do not think, or think about thinking.

Perhaps the scariest effect of the Mind:Body binary is that it denies that reality is fundamental and consciousness emerges from it. By privileging the abstract representations over the reality they symbolize, we remove ourselves from responsible engagement with the objective world in favor of rationalizing it with words and logic. Do you see any irony in my writing this?

A clarification of the human:animal binary

The human:animal binary discussed in "Who is an animal?" provides humans with an arbitrary tool for evaluating the relative worth of different beings by categorizing them. In that post, I discuss how humans are privileged and animals degraded at the level of language, although our (biological and social) similarities with many animals are greater than our differences. This distinction between human and animal allows humans to objectify and dominate not only other species, but also other humans who have been labelled animals.

I feel like I should clear up the concept of the human:animal binary, and develop it a bit further. Binaries are opposing ideals that we use to classify specific traits and actions. When I say we categorize beings with binaries, I don't mean that we always designate individuals as belonging entirely within one ideal or the other (i.e. a mailman is totally human, a dog is completely inhuman). Humans regularly recognize overlap and ambiguity; but our complex evaluations of individuals and phenomena arise out of the classification of specific attributes and behaviors within dualistic frameworks. Based on a synthesis of an individual's ideal traits, we place them on a spectrum, or hierarchy of relative worth.

Open Your Eyes - Watch EARTHLINGS

EARTHLINGS is a 2005 documentary about the use of animals as pets, food, clothing, entertainment, and scientific research objects. If you watch one video from this blog, make it this one. If you're busy like I am and don't have much time to spare in your life, watch EARTHLINGS instead of reading my blog. This movie is an essential introduction to the role of animals in the global economy, and how ideology and invisibility cause horrific suffering on a massive scale. I have to warn you: the film features disturbing, graphic images of living creatures being used as commodities. It is not easy to witness. However, seeing and hearing the realities of violence is crucial towards building a critical consciousness of animals' position in the human world. You need to watch this film if you want to engage meaningfully with the issues raised by this blog.

Watch the trailer below, and click through the link beneath it to watch the full movie in high quality. Seriously, watch it right now.

Make the Connection. EARTHLINGS.com