Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Are you looking to buy
Loving Animals: Toward a New Animal Advocacy? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer
discounts of up to 90% on
Loving Animals: Toward a New Animal Advocacy. Check out the link below:
>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers
Loving Animals: Toward a New Animal Advocacy ReviewThis very odd book is being marketed as a debunking of an animal-rights position based on "analytical philosophy," one that recommends replacing it with narrative (stories about how we love animals) and an Eastern idea of "connectedness." A couple of things make this strange. One is that she's attacking something of a straw man-- while I think it's the PETA position on pets that is her target (?), the argument for animal rights is far-ranging, and certainly people who have been advocating for decades against factory farms on the basis of environmental damage, or for apex predators because of the roles they play in ecosystems, will be bemused to discover that they need to learn about "connectedness." There are also worrying implications for basing animal rights on the animals we love AND THAT CAN LOVE US-- a problem beautifully portrayed by Jonathan Safran Foer in just a couple of pages in Eating Animals as he describes Germans rallying to save Knut the polar bear-- while eating sausages. What does this do for animals that don't love us back (snakes, frogs)? For animals we have scary stories about (sharks)? Doesn't it make more sense to organize against factory farms by joining animal rights to those concerned about environmental impacts and the treatment of illegal workers, rather than appealing to a love for pigs, which not everyone shares (hey, some of us aren't even fond of dogs)? And didn't we already have this in the 80s with the save-the-panda phenomenon, and leave it behind as animal rights folks clued in to environmentalism and ecosystems?
Rudy certainly is personally engaged and emotionally committed to her positions, and some readers may enjoy the very personal accounts here, but I found that element the most disturbing part of the book. She concludes with a story about her dogs, in which she explains how her pit bull mix attacked and almost killed another dog to show dominance, how it didn't obey her release command during the attack, how it doesn't even obey "sit" sometimes, and how... she has a ten-year-old walk it. I want to know if this ethicist has told that child's mother that the dog has attacked a pet in the past and doesn't obey commands even from its owner, but instead she explains what was in the dog's mind during the attack, "how she came to her decision," and that the dog has a "sense of satire." This level of extreme anthropomorphization is her proposed replacement for the clear reasoning, analytical philosophy, and understanding of environmental impact currently offered by the animal rights movement. It doesn't seem like much of an alternative, really.
Loving Animals: Toward a New Animal Advocacy Overview The contemporary animal rights movement encompasses a wide range of sometimes-competing agendas from vegetarianism to animal liberation. For people for whom pets are family members—animal lovers outside the fray—extremist positions in which all human–animal interaction is suspect often discourage involvement in the movement to end cruelty to other beings. In Loving Animals, Kathy Rudy argues that in order to achieve such goals as ending animal testing and factory farming, activists need to be better attuned to the profound emotional, even spiritual, attachment that many people have with the animals in their lives.
Offering an alternative to both the acceptance of animal exploitation and radical animal liberation, Rudy shows that a deeper understanding of the nature of our feelings for and about animals can redefine the human–animal relationship in a positive way. Through extended interviews with people whose lives are intertwined with animals, analysis of the cultural representation of animals, and engaging personal accounts, she explores five realms in which humans use animals: as pets, for food, in entertainment, in scientific research, and for clothing. In each case she presents new methods of animal advocacy to reach a more balanced and sustainable relationship association built on reciprocity and connection.
Using this intense emotional bond as her foundation, Rudy suggests that the nearly universal stories we tell of living with and loving animals will both broaden the support for animal advocacy and inspire the societal changes that will improve the lives of animals—and humans—everywhere.
Want to learn more information about
Loving Animals: Toward a New Animal Advocacy?
>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now
