Abstract
In her chapter, Zipporah Weisberg advances a Left humanist approach as an alternative to liberal positions currently employed to tackle nonhuman animals’ issues. Left humanism, Weisberg proposes, can be seen as a direct response to the dehumanization and de-animalization of the subject common to late capitalist societies. As Weisberg notices, humanism has traditionally been one of the main contributors to the continuous disregard and violence towards nonhuman animals. Yet, once freed of its anthropocentrism, Weisberg maintains, Left humanism could be an effective and inclusive way of considering nonhuman animals and the issues they face.
While the problem of humanization has always…been humankind’s central problem, it now takes on the character of an inescapable concern.
Paolo Freire (2011, p.43)
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
Animal Equality 2016, Food. Available from: http://www.animalequality.net/food
- 2.
Animal Equality 2016, Experimentation. Available from: http://www.animalequality.net/animal-experimentation
- 3.
Animal Equality 2016, Entertainment. Available from: http://www.animalequality.net/entertainment
- 4.
For a preliminary foray into the pluses and minuses of humanism from an animal liberation perspective, see Weisberg, Z., 2014, The Trouble with Posthumanism: Bacteria are People too, in Thinking the Unthinkable: New Readings in Critical Animal Studies, ed., J. Sorenson, Toronto: Canadian Scholar’s Press, pp.93–116. A number of themes taken up in that earlier piece are returned to and developed here.
- 5.
For a detailed examination of these and other animal studies theorists’ critiques of humanism, see Weisberg, 2014, pp.94–98.
Bibliography
Adams, C. J., 2010. The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory. New York: Continuum.
Adorno, T. W., 2007. Negative Dialectics. Trans., E. B. Ashton. New York: Continuum.
“An Ecosocialist Manifesto”, 2011. Capitalism, Nature, Socialism. URL: www.cnsjournal.org/manifesto.html.
Arendt, H., 2003. Responsibility and Judgment. J. Kohn, ed., New York: Schocken Books.
Benjamin, W., 1968. Theses on the Philosophy of History. In H. Arendt, ed., Illuminations: Essays and Reflections. New York: Schocken Books.
Benton, T., 1998. Humanism = Speciesism: Marx on Humans and Animals. Radical Philosophy, 50(3), pp. 4–18.
Benton, T., 2011. Humanism = Speciesism?: Marx on Humans and Animals. In J. Sanbonmatsu, ed., Critical Theory and Animal Liberation. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.
Best, S., 2009. Minding the Animals: Ethology and the Obsolescence of Left Humanism. The International Journal of Inclusive Democracy, 5(2), URL: www.inclusivedemocracy.org/journal/vol5/vol5_no2_best_minding_animals.htm
Bookchin, M., 1980. Toward an Ecological Society. Montreal: Black Rose Books.
Bookchin, M., 1996. The Philosophy of Social Ecology: Essays on Dialectical Naturalism. Montreal: Black Rose Books.
Bookchin, M., 2005. The Ecology of Freedom: The Emergence and Dissolution of Hierarchy. Oakland: AK Press.
Butterfield, 2012. Sartre and Posthumanist Humanism, Beyond Humanism: Trans- and Posthumanism/Jenseits des Humanismus: Trans- und Posthumanismus (Book 4). ed. S. L. Sorgner. Frankfurt am Main, Berlin: Peter Lang.
Césaire, A., 2000. Discourse on Colonialism. Trans., J. Pinkham. New York: Monthly Review Press.
Coe, S., 2001. Modern Man Followed by the Ghosts of his Meat. 2nd Edition (Photo Etching). URL: graphicwitness.org/coe/mm2nd.jpg
de Beauvoir, S., 1989. The Second Sex. Trans. (and ed.), H. M. Parshley. New York: Vintage Books.
Eagleton, T., 1996. The Illusions of Postmodernism. Malden: Blackwell.
Eagleton, T., 2011. Why Marx was Right. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Fanon, F., 1963. Wretched of the Earth. Trans., C. Farrington. New York: Grove Press.
Fanon, F., 1967. Black Skin, White Masks. Trans., C. L. Markmann. New York: Grove Press.
Foucault, M., 1980. Truth and Power. In C. Gordon, ed., (Trans., C. Gordon, L. Marshall, J. Mepham & K. Soper), Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972–1977. New York: Pantheon Books.
Foucault, M., 1990. The History of Sexuality: An Introduction, Vol. 1. Trans., R. Hurley. New York: Vintage Books.
Freire, P., 2011. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. 30th Anniversary ed. Trans., M. B. Ramos. New York, London: Continuum.
Fromm, E., 1966. Introduction. In E. Fromm, ed., Socialist Humanism: An International Symposium. Garden City: Anchor Books.
Fromm, E., 2004. Marx’s Concept of Man. London: Continuum.
Gaard, G., 2011. Ecofeminism Revisited: Rejecting Essentialism and Re-placing Species in a Material Feminist Environmentalism. Feminist Formations, 22(22), pp. 26–53.
Horkheimer, M., 2002. Critical Theory: Selected Essays. Trans., M. J. O’Connel, et al. New York: Continuum.
Horowitz, A., 1987. Rousseau, Nature, and History. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Jones, P., 2002. Toward Total Animal Liberation. Conference address from Animal Rights 2002 Plenary Session on Engaging Other Communities. URL: www.pattricejones.info/texts.html
Joy, M., 2005. Humanistic Psychology and Animal Rights: Reconsidering the Boundaries of the Humanistic Ethic. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 45(1), pp. 106–130.
Levinas, E., 1969. Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority. Trans., A. Lingis. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press.
Levinas, E., 2007. Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority. Trans., A. Lingis. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press.
Luik, J. C., 2008. Humanism. In E. Craig, ed., Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. London: Routledge.
Lyotard, J-F., 1984. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. In (trans.) G. Bennington & B. Massumi, Theory and History of Literature, Vol. 10, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Marcuse, H., 1965. Socialist Humanism?. In E. Fromm, ed., Socialist Humanism: An International Symposium. New York: Doubleday and Company.
Marcuse, H., 1966. Eros and Civilization: A Philosophical Inquiry into Freud. Boston: Beacon Press.
Marcuse, H., 1969. An Essay on Liberation. Boston: Beacon Press.
Marcuse, H., 1972. Counterrevolution and Revolt. Boston: Beacon Press.
Marcuse, H., 1991. One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society. Boston: Beacon Press.
Marshall, P., 2008. Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism. London: Harper Perennial.
Marx, K., 1978a. Theses on Feuerbach. In R. C. Tucker, ed., The Marx-Engels Reader. 2nd Edition. New York: W. W. Norton and Company.
Marx, K., 1978b. Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844. In R. C. Tucker, ed., The Marx-Engels Reader. 2nd Edition. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
Marx, K., 1990. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Vol. 1. Trans., B. Fowkes London: Penguin Books.
Nibert, D. 2002. Animal Rights, Human Rights: Entanglements of Oppression and Liberation. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.
Noske, B., 1997. Beyond Boundaries: Humans and Animals. Montreal: Black Rose Books.
Ollman, B., 2008. Why dialectics? Why now?. In B. Ollman & T. Smith, eds., Dialectics for the New Century. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Patterson, C., 2002. Eternal Treblinka: Our Treatment of Animals and the Holocaust. New York: Lantern Books.
Pico della Mirandola, G., 1956. Oration on the Dignity of Man. Trans., R. A Gaponigri. Chicago: Henry Regnery Company.
Sanbonmatsu, J., 2004. The Postmodern Prince: Critical Theory, Left Strategy, and the Making of a New Political Subject. New York: Monthly Review Press.
Sanbonmatsu, J., 2007. The Subject of Freedom at the End of History: Socialism beyond Humanism. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 66(1), pp. 237–255.
Sartre, J-P., 1963. Preface. In F. Fanon (trans. C. Farrington), The Wretched of the Earth. New York: Grove Press.
Sartre, J-P., 1965. Anti-Semite and Jew. Trans., G. J. Becker. New York: Schocken Books.
Sartre, J-P., 2007. Existentialism is a Humanism. In C. Macomber, ed., Existentialism is a Humanism. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Staudenmaier, P., 2005. Ambiguities of Animal Rights. Institute for Social Ecology. URL: www.social-ecology.org/2005/01/ambiguities-of-animal-rights
Torres, B., 2007. Making a Killing: The Political Economy of Animal Rights. Edinburgh: AK Press.
Weisberg, Z., 2011. Animal Repression: Speciesism as Pathology. In J. Sanbonmatsu, ed., Critical Theory and Animal Liberation. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.
Weisberg, Z., 2014. The Trouble with Posthumanism: Bacteria are People too. In J. Sorenson, ed., Thinking the Unthinkable: New Readings in Critical Animal Studies. Toronto: Canadian Scholar’s Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Weisberg, Z. (2017). Reinventing Left Humanism: Towards an Interspecies Emancipatory Project. In: Woodhall, A., Garmendia da Trindade, G. (eds) Ethical and Political Approaches to Nonhuman Animal Issues. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-54549-3_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-54549-3_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-54548-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-54549-3
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)