The Limits of Solidarity: Why does ‘leftist’ moral clarity evaporate when animals enter the conversation?
The Limits of Solidarity: Why does ‘leftist’ moral clarity evaporate when animals enter the conversation?
Leftists will speak movingly about hierarchies of domination and systems of violence right up until the victim is a pig or a cow instead of a person. Then suddenly the tone changes. The moral language softens. Everything becomes nuanced and ‘complicated’ and culturally relative. Conservatives are often honest about their fundamental, rancid belief that animals exist purely for human use, and don’t particularly care whether anyone finds that cruel. The left likes to talk a lot about standing with the oppressed. Animals, apparently, remain too oppressed to count. EVAN SHAMOON: In a rare moment of veganism becoming part of mainstream internet […]
R.I.P. Happy: Zoo elephant at the center of animal rights legal case is euthanized
R.I.P. Happy: Zoo elephant at the center of animal rights legal case is euthanized
The Nonhuman Rights Project sued the Bronx Zoo in 2018, seeking to have Happy declared a ‘person’ for legal purposes and moved to a large animal sanctuary. It was the first such case about an elephant. Citing a principle that’s used to challenge the legality of a person’s imprisonment, the activist group said Happy was ‘an extraordinarily cognitively complex and autonomous nonhuman being’ who was unlawfully deprived of her liberty and suffered from being pent- up in a exhibit without other elephants. New York’s top court ultimately rejected the activists’ claim, by a 5-2 majority. Still, two of the New York […]
Puppy Love: How opposition to animal testing is bridging the political divide
Puppy Love: How opposition to animal testing is bridging the political divide
On April 30, Ridglan Farms finally buckled to public pressure, handing the movement against animal testing one of its biggest triumphs, an agreement to purchase 1,500 beagles for an undisclosed amount of money. The hard-won concession was made possible by an unlikely and uncoordinated alliance of advocates from the left and right. While left-leaning animal rights groups like Direct Action Everywhere have carried out past break-in efforts to rescue the dogs, MAGA luminary Lara Trump, President Trump’s daughter-in-law, waged a highly visible pressure campaign on the company and the animal testing industry. At a time when partisan divisions continue to widen in […]
