Another thrilling round of "Anarchism and Animal Rights

Ofcourse, I dont pity the people dying everyday of preventable diseases, or all those crushed from cradle to grave because they cant provide for themselves in a system that takes everything from them (!) ..I am enraged by their situation because they are like me thinking, feeling beings who have the same wants and needs as I have, fear the same things and suffer despite it. Enlightened self-interest IS empathy, is compassion and any form of "emancipation" involves both self-action and mutual co-action. It happens to be called mutual aid by the way.

The 19th century quote is thus taken to its most rediculous and illogical conclusions. Why must working class emancipation be the task of the workers themselves? Because to move to a society of equality and freedom it can only involve the active work and progression of the very components of that society. It does not follow that if something cannot emancipate itself it should not be emancipated, but in terms of societal change it can only happen that way.

Moo Moo

What about us?

Moo

Ermintrude Cow

love you, ermintrude.

I think you're confusing solidarity and altruism. Solidarity is not simply a case of helping others - it is co-operation with others in the same struggle. Altruism also implies selflessness - whereas the basis of our struggle is in recognising your own needs. A political basis in altruism would only lead to charitable liberalism. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to say you're a liberal, just that you're mistaken in saying libertarian communism is an altruistic ideology.

But what are our struggles ultimately building for? Communism. Now I'll agree that in a lib. communist society there will in all likelihood be a more humane treatment of animals, and that is realistically the only way any large scale animal "emancipation" could come about. But pushing for that now as part of our struggle does not build workers' unity or encourage socialist tendencies within the working class - if anything it is divisive and counter-productive. So surely even for a libertarian communist with animal lib. sympathies making animal emancipation part of their struggle is at best a distraction, and at worst a hindrance.

Furthermore, there is never going to be a mass working class animal rights movement which could gain positive reforms for animals under capitalism (like, for example workers' struggles have won us welfare states) and even if there was animals are of such secondary importance that those sort of gains just aren't worth the resources.

If by altruism you mean the belief that we should give charity and aid to others, than yeah I'd agree that usually gets us nowhere. It's a pointless reformist "church-going" perspective that can completely undermine the other party/the reciever of charity's own efforts to help themselves and is thus counter to any movement for societal change. Obviously I'm not thinking of that. As I said, "any form of "emancipation" involves both self-action and mutual co-action" and that's solidarity. But within that I think you require an altruism or compassion (not pity) which is a shared feeling of suffering and want for change. It isn't pity; a superior downward-looking charity-giving perspective, it's based in equality.

So you dont want the situation to change in the so-called developing world merely for your own benefit, the fact that it would vastly improve the lives of so many other human beings is enough. If you're going to let an animal out of a trap, say, you dont think, "how will I gain from this" you do it for the simple reason that it'd help the animal -that's enough. And it's altruism.

I wouldn't use those words. Altruism should (and I think does) play a large part in it, but then it's also in our own direct self-interest; so it's not specifically an "altruistic ideology".

Again, you're somewhat mistaking why we're for animal rights. It isn't for us a "secondary issue", it's as important as everything else. We thus can't be sensible and forget about it until the day revolution comes and we can think about it then. D'you know they had the exact same argument used when it came to women's rights (dont get it on at me for using a human example)? They said it'd divide the working class movement and was never as important as class. But as a sympton of class society it can only be advanced by conscious support here and now! The idea that we can differentiate between this injustice and that, and expect to forget about one is absurd. It's like an orthodox communist saying we anarchists are destroying the prospect of revolution simply for the ideas we have as anarchists...all we can do is push for what we believe in.

There has been reforms for animals under capitalism and that has only come through mass protesting, petitioning and struggle. The problem is bringing class into it and vice versa.

actually going to sound like a hippy but i think that what should move a revolutionary is love. A love that is soo strong it can not stand and watch life be wasted making shite for shites, in a system that makes whores of us all and makes every action either meaningless or cheapened. Of course as Def Leopard said "love and hate collide".

god im in a weird mood.

Hi

Go revol68!, you're money.

Love

Chris

Edited by adding this clarification. Wouldn't want anyone getting the wrong idea...

http://www.geocities.com/raviweb2000/M.HTM

..... from libcom's Number One Love-Spreader himself. Fact!

I was talking mainly about altruism in a general revolutionary sense, human beings can act for their own emancipation and at the same time co-operate with others. Animals generally aren't capable of escaping the conditions they are under nor can they unite with us in some human form of solidarity. That they cant, is a crap reason to deny them the basic respect and acceptance of their capacity to feel and suffer. From their own side they dont want to be kept in a factory farm without daylight in a cage no bigger than A4 piece of paper, from our side and in relation to them; we dont keep them like that. simple.

I know you would Jacky.

No more or less important. So, yes. I dont care if you think you can have equality in one place and then complete inequality in another, that to me is rather unrealistic.

who's he parodying? Is this an old guy joke?

i think it must be

it wasn't really a parody to be honest. As i said im in a funny ole mood of late.

Hi

I knew your post was authentic revol68, was it my poem?

Love

Chris