Brutes

September 15, 2021 3:18 PM

Amitav Ghosh's meditations on the myth of the voiceless.
posted by Ouverture (4 comments total)

I knew, eventually, the rational mind would come along, that is not a continuation of the oxymoron we have used ,to do the awful, up to, and through the last two seconds. But, witnessing the images of Dolphin slaughter on the Faroe Islands this week, and atrocities in the Amazon, the chemical murder of the web of life, relentless expenditure of planetary resources on the mass murder known as war, well it will be a hard transition to peaceful coexistence amid all parties to this world. Rationality, rationalization, lust, and blood lust, hunger and a food supply that is by design murderous and flawed, skewed, we are all in trouble. No living thing is safe. The Earth is a living thing that we are all a part of. I don't mean to preach to any assembled choir, Amitav Ghosh has said some great things here, and pointed out cause and effect, and tied it all up in a neat package, sitting just over there, on the plaza of mass transactions, buy this thought, buy a way to make us work. And while we grieve and morn, Americans are in Brazil, backing up the destroying frame of mind, while indigenous women parade and supplicate in feathers and tattoos, begging for their lives.
posted by Oyéah at 5:33 PM on September 15, 2021 [2 favorites]

I just don’t understand the notion that compassion with animals would trump the human instinct for self-preservation.
So a focus on animal welfare as the center of a plea for climate action feels pretty misguided to me. Dolphins are fine, but if you spring to action in their defence rather than your kids’, something seems off, you know?
And its moot anyway, the climate problem is a research and design problem, as much as we can do anything about it. You need data on the most cost-effective action individuals can take, and format and push the info so a common groundswell happens. Everyone still flies on jets because everyone else does too.
Without a common path the individual tends to hyperfocus. Vegans that still fly on jets are an example, although making them the focus here may be a bit mean.
The covid showed us how this can be done, a simple set of rules that most followed, in countries with adequate social cohesion.
Antagonistic framing of climate messaging isn’t something we can afford. And the US’ covid debacle shows us just how badly the outcome gets mangled when logical action gets tied to tribal identities.
So if you make it a fight, you lose even if you win. Getting 50% on board isn’t enough. So this needs to be about all of us, and us only. The animals don’t need to recycle and cancel their holidays, anyway.
Oh and this is only loosely in relation to the article, since it was very long and around the beginning and end.
posted by svenni at 6:11 PM on September 15, 2021

Ghosh is hard at work at deconstructing fiction authors’ complicity in abetting the planetary emergency we are facing, while also tracing possible avenues for writers to redress and heal the damage that’s been done. He’s not alone in this work, I imagine, but he is still something of a stand-out in fashionable literary circles. More power to this recasting of our trans-species relationships (indeed, of our very fetish-focus on the notion of species itself) so as to rediscover a livable planet for all…
posted by progosk at 12:48 AM on September 16, 2021 [1 favorite]

Oh and this is only loosely in relation to the article, since it was very long and around the beginning and end.

I would encourage giving the piece another chance since it addresses many of the points you are making here (namely, Ghosh is absolutely not saying we should center animal welfare as the basis for climate action). Of course, if you are in too much of a rush to critically read a relatively short piece, then it seems to illustrate another point that many climate writers and organizers are regularly making: what are the systems above you that force you into such a rush?

I particularly like this line (and it has nothing to do with "a focus on animal welfare"):

The current ubiquity of the word brutality is an indication of a stunning reversal: no longer is this domain of meaning configured around the savage or the semicivilized; it is centered instead on the repressive machinery of the state, primarily the police. The inversion of meaning establishes an etymological arc that links the planetary crisis directly back to processes of colonization, enslavement, and biopolitical war.

posted by Ouverture at 10:10 AM on September 16, 2021 [5 favorites]