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flexibeasti had got the impression from around the traps that Penn and Teller's tv show Bullshit was a great show debunking various myths. Well, i recently saw a substantial portion of their episode on the animal rights movement (e.g. PETA), and the start of their episode on the environmental movement . . . . and i call Bullshit.
The animal rights episode not only appeared to be trying to conflate the views of PETA and groups like the ALF, it offered little substantive philosophical arguments against the notion of animal rights. The major argument seemed to be "Well, obviously we should care more about humans than animals! Comparing the mass killing of animals for food to the Holocaust is just ludicrous!" The problem is, humans have often justified oppressing each other through claims that the privileged group 'obviously' should have more rights than the unprivileged group; and more interestingly, by putting unprivileged groups in the 'animal' category (e.g. "Negroes are little more than animals"). But in any event, although the philosophy behind the animal rights movement may or may not be tenable, i feel that (having done a reasonable amount of reading on the philosophy in question) its refutation requires a more comprehensive philosophical response than the "Pfft, what rubbish!" response of Penn and Teller.
i managed to sit through between five and ten minutes of the episode on the environmental movement before i changed channels in disgust.
There were two basic claims being made that i had an issue with:
The animal rights episode not only appeared to be trying to conflate the views of PETA and groups like the ALF, it offered little substantive philosophical arguments against the notion of animal rights. The major argument seemed to be "Well, obviously we should care more about humans than animals! Comparing the mass killing of animals for food to the Holocaust is just ludicrous!" The problem is, humans have often justified oppressing each other through claims that the privileged group 'obviously' should have more rights than the unprivileged group; and more interestingly, by putting unprivileged groups in the 'animal' category (e.g. "Negroes are little more than animals"). But in any event, although the philosophy behind the animal rights movement may or may not be tenable, i feel that (having done a reasonable amount of reading on the philosophy in question) its refutation requires a more comprehensive philosophical response than the "Pfft, what rubbish!" response of Penn and Teller.
i managed to sit through between five and ten minutes of the episode on the environmental movement before i changed channels in disgust.
There were two basic claims being made that i had an issue with:
- Firstly, that the environmental movement is being 'alarmist' and that really things aren't as bad as them greenies are making out. Part of this involved having a go at a guy who said something like "Global warming, deforestation, glacial melting - there's no debate that these things are happening." P&T's response was "Bullshit: there's always debate." Well, technically, yes, but then, don't we have to look at the quality of the debate? Take Wallace and Darwin's theory of Natural Selection, which nowadays forms part of a broader theory called the 'synthetic' theory. Yes, technically, there is debate, between Creationists on the one hand and evolutionists on the other (i'm not even going to include 'Intelligent Design' here, because as far as i'm aware, it offers no falsifiable hypotheses to make it a valid scientific theory). There is a mass of evidence, however, to support the evolutionists, and very little to support the Creationists, who tend to rely on one or more of (a) people's misunderstandings of what Natural Selection is about; (b) ignoring/omitting substantial research data; (c) misunderstandings of physics; or (d) fabricating evidence. So the 'debate' in this instance is rather one-sided. (i would actually suggest that the debates over evolutionary rates are probably more significant.)
Similarly, the evidence for global warming, deforestation etc. is rather strong: New evidence shows Antarctica has warmed in last 150 years, World's Glaciers Slowly Disappearing, Arctic ice meltdown continues with significantly reduced winter ice cover, Ice cores reveal historic heights of CO2, Environmental damage highlighted by Google Earth, to cite just a few examples. It seems to me that the debate is less about whether global warming etc. is actually occurring and more about whether it's natural, or a result of human activity, or both (for example, recent research suggests that an increase in the sun's energy output is not a likely cause of global warming). But P&T didn't mention this. - Secondly, that the environmental movement is basically anti-corporate = anti-capitalist = socialist. Suggesting that all these notions are equivalent and interchangeable is, to put it simply, wrong. Anti-corporatism is not inherently anti-capitalist; it can actually be part of a conservative perspective. i have read a tirade by a conservative owner of an SMB against corporations because they are run by people who aren't actually liable (or have only limited liability) for the actions of the organisation, and who are therefore cowards evading personal responsibility - one of conservatism's treasured tenets. Further, hostility to capitalism does not automatically imply the advocacy of socialism; anarchism is another option (albeit one that can contain socialistic/communistic ideas), amongst others.
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Date: 2006-09-15 14:21 (UTC)But that's because I call bullshit on comparing ANYTHING to the Holocaust. Do people not see how incredibly disrespectful it is to fling Holocaust comparisons around? People treat it as some sort of Genocide Trump Card they can pull out whenever they want, and that's twelve kinds of stupid and disgusting.
There's all kinds of ways PETA could make its point without flourishing The Holocaust Card in such a callous way. (Or anything else -- their ads also have a disturbing tendency to be sexist as well. And some of the ads they direct toward kids, like the "Your Mommy KIlls Bunnies" ads, are just really not an appropriate way to bring up the issue to very young children. If kids aren't abused or mistreated, kids idolize their parents. Telling kids their parents are murderers is just too much of a mindjob. Telling kids "Your mommy isn't mindful of how these bunnies are treated! Maybe you should let her know!" might work better -- though I'm not sure what I think of them targeting young children at all anyway.)
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Date: 2006-09-15 14:52 (UTC)*nod* Definitely.
Re. PETA's ads - yeah, i've come across numerous instances of PETA's dodginess in this regard, and i was actually expecting P&T to focus on that stuff more than they did . . . .
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Date: 2006-09-15 16:05 (UTC)