We are animals too

On the website Counterpunch, Jon Hochschartner, in his article "Socialists and the Animal Question - Why can't vegans get some respect?" takes Marx and Engels and socialists generally (as well as anarchists) to task for their attitude to animal suffering and dismissal of vegetarianism (and veganism.) He Writes, “the attitude toward animal rights among the socialist left is more reactionary than that of the general population. My low-wage coworkers might think my views regarding non-humans are privileged and eccentric, but they never display the vitriolic scorn my beliefs earn among the socialist left.”

How accurate is this a representation?

This article is well worth a read, “The creatures, too,must become free”: Marx and the Animal/Human Distinction” by Lawrence Wilde.

The clarion call for the liberation of animals quoted in the title of the article is by Thomas Münzer, a leader of the 16th century German Peasants’ Revolt is cited approvingly by Marx in On the Jewish Question, “ ...all creatures have been turned into property, the fishes in the water, the birds in the air, the plants on the earth; the creatures, too, must become free.”

Wilde concludes his essay by saying  “Marx’s conception of communist society was that of an ethical community operating democratically through free and equal individuals no longer under the tutelage of the law of value. To achieve the consciousness necessary to create this new world, Marx claimed that the alteration of humanity on a mass scale was required. When he talked of revolution it was an ethical as well as a social revolution, through which humanity rid itself of the ‘muck of all ages’ and became ‘fitted to found society anew’. The realisation of our sense of compassion in our dealings with animals is a necessary part of that revolution.”

This blog has certainly not shied away from the question of our relationship with animals. We addressed the issue in “Animal Rights” and also in "Compassion for who - people or animals?"

Life is full of single issues; eating, work, health, education, transport, recreation and leisure– for food, clothes, household needs. Single issues, each a part of the big picture, a part of life, the parts constituting a whole. What we choose as the parts and how we put them together probably defines our character in large part. It’s not what’s thrown at you but how you react to what’s thrown at you that reveals your personality. Being proactive rather than reactive will mean being better organized and more in control of one’s time, resources and emotions; however, proactive or reactive, issues are what make up our days, years, whole lives. Most of us will prioritise, knowing that ultimately all will need to be dealt with; some can be passed over lightly or shared or delayed, others, more pressing, will receive our urgent attention. There are many people who work full time on their chosen most important issue for years. There are many more the world over who volunteer part time endeavouring to make a difference on one or more of these never-ending single issues. These are good people, believing they have something to offer, wanting to make the world a better place, wanting to create a level playing field. So, why is it that there are now more of them than ever before in history, trying to reverse the march of ever-widening divisions? If what they were doing was working there would be need for less of them, there would be positive indications from statistics, not year on year reports of increasing anomalies. The futility of the ever-increasing single issue campaigns is clear for all to see. Could it be because they are being reactive rather than proactive? Could it be that their perceptions of these issues as ‘single’ issues is working against them? As in life, it isn’t possible to be involved with all these issues separately. As with life’s issues, the single ‘political’ issues add up to the whole. What is required is a philosophy, a way of life that addresses the sum total of all the issues, large and small. Socialism is the natural umbrella for humanity. All the single issues are seen by socialists as effects, the cause of which is capitalism. Effects can be ameliorated but it is better to eliminate the cause and prevent the effects returning. Once the decision is made by the majority to press forward to cooperative life in a peaceful world based upon the common ownership of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interests of the whole community people will be in place who have the knowledge, skills and passion to bring reality to their long-held dreams of solutions to each single issue, in full recognition that theirs is just one small but significant part of an entity much greater than the sum of its parts.

Humans are both a part and a product of nature and humans have a unique significance in nature since they are the only life-form capable of reflective thought and so of conscious intervention to change the environment. It is absurd to regard human intervention in nature as some outside disturbing force, since humans are precisely that part of nature which has evolved that consciously intervenes in the rest of nature; it is our nature to do so. True, that at the present time, the form human intervention in the rest of Nature takes is upsetting natural balances and cycles, but the point is that humans, unlike other life-forms, are capable of changing their behaviour. In this sense the human species is the brain and voice of Nature i.e. Nature become self-conscious. But to fulfil this role humans must change the social system which mediates their intervention in nature.