Looking through a book

is different than reading one. Recently I received a copy of a book titled: "Animal Madness, How anxious dogs, compulsive parrots, and elephants in recovery help us understand ourselves" by Laurel Braitman. After reading some passages located via the index test...well...I looked through the book, I didn't read it.

Reading the title will tell you most everything you need to know about what is contained in the book (it should...that's a very long title). The last four words "help us understand ourselves" let us know the book is about what humans might get out of the deal. Pretty much par for the course in terms of human beings interacting with other beings. The author is listed as holding a Ph.D. from M.I.T in the history of science. On her website (one wherein she sorta seems to be quite impressed with herself) she touts herself as being a TED fellow...what that means I'm not quite sure. I was overcome by three letter acronym fatigue.

The index test shows that "animal rights" is mentioned in 5 locations in the book...that seems like a good thing except the first mention is brief and dismissive, the second mention is a snarky swipe at PETA, the third is a more lengthy write up about the fellow who trained Flipper the dolphin...with a primary focus on whether suicide occurs in other animals. For some reason that seems to be a hot idea to a certain group. Why, I'm not sure.

The fourth reference is several pages that includes this passage:

"This is why I never trust an animal rights activist who is misogynistic or thinks that Homo sapiens are, at heart, more rotten than any other species. Human rights activists are animal rights activists by default. The reverse should also be true."  p. 281

She seems to be doing some peculiar mixing and matching here, I'm presuming she's referencing the fact that humans are animals hence human rights activists are by definition animal rights activists. She coyly leaves out the fact that most human rights activists do not advocate for the other animals nor do they refrain from harming or eating other animals. The word definition seems to be enough for her. She doesn't say anything about not "trusting" human rights activists who aren't vegan...which should be the case if she's being serious. (I'm also presuming she misuses the word misogynistic when she means misanthropic...or maybe she meant to use it the way she did and was coupling misogynistic (the term) with a definition of misanthropic.)

I'll just say that I would be a bit suspicious of any animal rights activist who isn't a little misanthropic or who hasn't or doesn't entertain misanthropic thoughts and/or feelings based on the actuality and the history of the way human animals behave toward our sister and brother animals. For me any animal rights activist not being a bit leery of humans and their behaviors bespeaks of someone either being much more saintly than seems genuine or extremely naive or disingenuous. Believing we ought to feel all animals are equal in their right to live their own lives is one thing, ignoring the actuality of how different animals behave in regard to this (specifically human animals) is either symptomatic of cognitive malfunctioning or a serious denial of reality.

The fifth mention really isn't about animal rights, it's about animal welfare (arguably as are all the others). I suspect this author is the sort of person that would be characterized as an "animal lover". She seems to have been around lots of other animals and seems to care about them...up to a point. She is a human supremacist, make no mistake about it. She's the sort of supremacist (white, or human or otherwise) who would treat her slaves well...but...she absolutely believes that some sorts of animals (those not human) should be slaves and some shouldn't (humans).

Her notion of some future goals of "animal rights" includes this:

"We could stop eating mentally ill pigs, chickens, and cows, and do away with corporate farming practices so cruel they're often institutionalized torture. We could stop trimming our coats with the fur of compulsive mink, foxes, sable, and chinchillas and quit testing our drugs, cosmetics, and medical procedures on lab animals housed alone and in terribly uncomfortable conditions." p. 284

She goes on in the next paragraph to say we should accept that we're just another kind of animal and then she says (rather hilariously): "This kind of change will not be easy or fast." What "change" this would entail, based on her book, seems to be to not be so "mean", I guess...it's ok to oppress, enslave and kill and eat the other animals...just don't be ugly or mean about it.

I laughed out loud when I read the statement about not eating mentally ill pigs...that's a catch 22 for pigs. Sort of: "If you're crazy, little pig, we won't kill you and eat you but if you're not...well...tough tittie...you're bacon." One of the first things I thought when I read that was there goes any notions that MIT grads or TED fellows are the brightest of the bright.

But...it does give us a beautiful example of how denial creates stupidity. When we deliberately blind ourselves cognitively or emotionally then we are going to be oblivious to some absurdities. We are at risk of voicing, in a perfectly serious way, really grotesque and ridiculous (and sad) statements. And MIT or TED or Harvard or Yale or Stanford or or or...no amount of or excellence of education, no superior IQ...no nothing...is going to prevent our viewpoint from being warped and incomplete and distorted if we engage in denial. It is the all purpose stupefier and get you it will if you are under its influence.

Back in February I wrote about the index test, this book has animal rights in the index...but...there's no listing for vegan (or vegetarian) in the index...big big clue right there that here's another book ostensibly about the other animals that is actually about human exceptionalism/supremacy. This book really doesn't need the index test because the title tells you it is all about what human animals might gain from the other animals (help us understand ourselves). Given the denial exhibited by the author, I'm not too sure she has received much help in that respect but...my impression is she's out to gain for herself...her website is rather self-promoting and I suppose she's trying to "milk" the book for all she can.

I presume this is a "well-meaning" human...I don't think she is personally deliberately cruel to other animals (she just pays others to enact the cruelty) and I think she would like to see some of the more horrific ways that we torture and enslave and kill other animals be reformed or eliminated. That's a good thing. But...she's a human supremacist...period. She wants to keep right on oppressing, enslaving and killing, just not do it in such openly cruel ways.

I will give her credit for writing one of the more zany (in a tragic and sad way) statements I've ever seen. Stop eating mentally-ill pigs. Good grief.

I'll tell ya what...just stop eating pigs (or any other beings), whether mentally-ill or not...go vegan. That way you don't have to do any diagnosing for mental-illness or compulsivity or loneliness or anything else.