{"id":759048,"date":"2019-12-14T08:10:17","date_gmt":"2019-12-14T13:10:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/?p=759048"},"modified":"2019-12-14T08:20:04","modified_gmt":"2019-12-14T13:20:04","slug":"kim-stallwood-we-are-all-animal-lovers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/?p=759048","title":{"rendered":"KIM STALLWOOD: We are all animal lovers"},"content":{"rendered":"\t
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It\u2019s time to embrace the term \u2018animal lover\u2019. We want to transform the label, and infuse its meaning with a commitment to animal rights. <\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/blockquote>\n\n

KIM STALLWOOD & PHILIP MCKIBBEN:<\/strong> ‘Would you say that you\u2019re an \u2018animal lover\u2019? It isn\u2019t difficult to find people who say that they are. At the same time, many people in the animal rights movement reject the term \u2018animal lover\u2019. Not only do they claim not to love animals, a lot of them say that they don\u2019t own animals, either. When they do share their lives with animals, it\u2019s usually with rescued animals who they think of as companions rather than pets. They feel that the word \u2018love\u2019 devalues the work that they do, and they insist that it is possible to respect animals\u2019 rights and work to make their lives better without feeling any affection for them. \u2018Love\u2019 doesn\u2019t come into it…<\/em><\/p>\n

All of us care about animals, even if we express our love in different ways. And every day, more of us are becoming animal activists: initiatives like \u2018Meatless Monday\u2019 are growing in popularity, and more people than ever before are adopting vegetarian diets and vegan lifestyles, often citing our horrendous treatment of animals as the main reason for making a change.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Politics of Love can help us to think through our relationships with other animals. Love can be thought of as an orientation, or \u2018attitude\u2019 \u2013 as, that is, a way of relating to the world that we share. The Politics of Love elaborates this relationship: it affirms loving values, such as compassion, truth, and justice (all of which are affirmed by the animal rights movement), and it upholds commitments, such as its commitment to non-violence.<\/em><\/p>\n

Even though it isn\u2019t always viewed as such, our treatment of other animals is a political issue. To love animals is political. Politics is a dimension of ethics \u2013 it concerns its relational aspects \u2013 and as feminists have long maintained, \u2018the personal is political\u2019. What we eat is political, in the same way that who\u2019s cooking dinner tonight is political \u2013 especially if we\u2019re eating others! When we understand this, we see \u2018choice\u2019 as yet another privilege…<\/em><\/p>\n

Love asks us to actively extend our circle of concern, and it challenges us to recognise those who our privileges allow us to overlook. Importantly, it teaches us that speciesism is similar to racism, sexism, classism, and other forms of hierarchical thinking, and it urges us to understand that in order to overcome one of these, we must struggle against them all. It requires us to see that respecting animals\u2019 rights is not optional \u2013 any more than, say, respecting gay rights is optional. It is not possible to respect rights without loving, because respecting rights is, inherently, an act of love.<\/em><\/p>\n

It is time to embrace our love of non-human animals. In doing so, not only will we better express our compassion, but we will also be able to love more fully. All of us will benefit from this \u2013 but those who benefit most will be the animals, who will be, and feel, loved by us, and who will have a much lesser chance of being victims of human cruelty. We are all animal lovers’<\/em>. SOURCE…<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

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