Anthro K vs. CTS

8/11/2019 Anthro K vs. CTS

1/49

BOOOOHOOOOOO ANIMALS HAVE

FEELINGS TOOBOOOOOOOHOOOOOOO


2/49

NotesIf run with Rights Malthus they can combine to make an impact turn strategy in the 2NR withthe environment ethics cards from the rights Malthus file in a pretty sick way

Use the role of the ballot argument as an answer to the perm.

THE CARDS ARE SOOOOOOO GOOOOOOOOOOD


3/49

1NCs


4/49

1NC

The 1AC operates under a destructive humanist worldview that ensures thatanthropocentrism continues causes extinction

Bell, York University department of education, and Russell, Lakehead Universityassociate professor, 2k (Anne C. and Constance L., department of education, YorkUniversity, Canada, and Canadian Journal of Environmental Education, Beyond Human, BeyondWords: Anthropocentrism, Critical Pedagogy, and t he Poststructuralist Turn, CANADIANJOURNAL OF EDUCATION 25, 3 (2000):188 203, http://www.csse-scee.ca/CJE/Articles/FullText/CJE25-3/CJE25-3-bell.pdf, p. 192)We come to critical pedagogy with a background in environmental thought and education. Of primary concern and interestto us are relationships among humans and the more -than- human world (Abram, 1996), theways in which those relationships are constituted and prescribed in modern industrialsociety, and the implications and consequences of those constructs . As a number of scholars and natureadvocates have argued, the many manifestations of the current environmental crisis (e.g., species

extinction, toxic contamination, ozone depletion, topsoil depletion, climate change, acid rain,deforestation) reflect predominant Western concepts of nature, nature cast as mindlessmatter, a mere resource to be exploited for human gain (Berman, 1981; Evernden, 1985; Merchant, 1980).An ability to respond adequately to the situation therefore rests , at least in part, on a willingness tocritique prevailing discourses about nature and to consider alternative representations (Cronon,1996; Evernden, 1992; Hayles, 1995). To this end, poststructuralist analysis has been and will continue to be invaluable. It would bean all-too-common mistake to construe the task at hand as one of interest only to environmentalists. We believe, rather, that

disrupting the social scripts that structure and legitimize the human domination of nonhumannature is fundamental not only to dealing with environmental issues, but also to examiningand challenging oppressive social arrangements. The exploitation of nature is not separate

from the exploitation of human groups . Ecofeminists and activists for environmental justicehave shown that forms of domination are often intimately connected and mutually reinforcing (Bullard, 1993; Gaard, 1997; Lahar, 1993; Sturgeon, 1997). Thus, if critical educators wish to resist variousoppressions, part of their project must entail calling into question , among other things, theinstrumental exploitive gaze through which we humans distance ourselves from the rest ofnature (Carlson, 1995). For this reason, the various movements against oppression need to be aware ofand supportive of each other. In critical pedagogy, however, the exploration of questions ofrace, gender, class, and sexuality has proceeded so far with little acknowledgement of thesystemic links between human oppressions and the domination of nature . The more-than-human world and human relationships to it have been ignored, as if the suffering andexploitation of other beings and the global ecological crisis were somehow irrelevant . Despite thecall for attention to voices historically absent from traditional canons and narratives (Sadovnik, 1995, p. 316), nonhumanbeings are shrouded in silence . This silence characterizes even the work of writers who call for a rethinking of allculturally positioned essentialisms. Like other educators influenced by poststructuralism, we agree that there is a need to scrutinizethe language we use, the meanings we deploy, and the epistemological frameworks of past eras (Luke & Luke, 1995, p. 378). Totreat social categories as stable and unchanging is to reproduce the prevailing relations ofpower (Britzman et al., 1991, p. 89). What would it mean, then, for critical pedagogy to extend this investigation and critique toinclude taken-for- granted understandings of human, animal, and nature? This question is difficult to raise precisely because

these understandings are taken for granted. The anthropocentric bias in critical pedagogy manifests itselfin silence and in the asides of texts . Since it is not a topic of discussion, it can be difficult to situate a critique of it.Following feminist analyses, we find that examples of anthropocentrism , like examples of gender symbolization,


5/49

occur in those places where speakers reveal the assumptions they think they do not need

to defend , beliefs they expect to share with their audiences (Harding, 1 986, p. 112). Take, for example,Freires (1990) statements about the differences between Man and animals. To set up his discussion of praxis and the import anceof naming the world, he outlines what he assumes to be shared, commonsensical beliefs abou t humans and other animals. Hedefines the boundaries of human membership according to a sharp, hierarchical dichotomy that establishes human superiority.Humans alone, he reminds us, are aware and self-conscious beings who can act to fulfill the objectives they set for themselves.

Humans alone are able to infuse the world with their creative presence, to overcome situations that limit them, and thus todemonstrate a decisive attitude towards the world (p. 90). Freire (1990, pp. 87 91) represents other animals in terms of theirlack of such traits. They are doomed to passively accept the given, their lives totally determined because their decisions belong notto themselves but to their species. Thus whereas humans inhabit a world which they create a nd transform and from which theycan separate themselves, for animals there is only habitat, a mere physical space to which they are organically bound. To acceptFreires assumptions is to believe that humans are animals only in a nominal sense. We are different not in degree but in kind, andthough we might recognize that other animals have distinct qualities, we as humans are somehow more unique. We have the edgeover other creatures because we are able to rise above monotonous, species-determined biological existence. Change in the

service of human freedom is seen to be our primary agenda. Humans are thus cast as active agents whose veryessence is to transform the world as if somehow acceptance, appreciation, wonder, andreverence were beyond the pale . This discursive frame of reference is characteristic of criticalpedagogy. The human/animal opposition upon which it rests is taken for granted, its culturaland historical specificity not acknowledged . And therein lies the problem. Like other socialconstructions, this one derives its persuasiveness from its seeming facticity and from thedeep investments individuals and communities have in setting themselves off from others (Britzman et al., 1991, p. 91). This becomes the normal way of seeing the world, and like otherdiscourses of normalcy, it limits possibilities of taking up and con- fronting inequities (seeBritzman, 1995). The primacy of the human enter- prise is simply not questioned. Precisely how ananthropocentric pedagogy might exacerbate the environmental crisis has not received muchconsideration in the literature of critical pedagogy , especially in North America. Although there may bepassing reference to planetary destruction, there is seldom mention of the relationshipbetween education and the domination of nature, let alone any sustained exploration of thelinks between the domination of nature and other social injustices. Concerns about thenonhuman are relegated to environmental education. And since environmental education, inturn, remains peripheral to the core curriculum (A. Gough, 1997; Russell, Bell, & Fawcett, 2000),

anthropocentrism passes unchallenged .1 p. 190-192

The alternative is to endorse global suicide of humanity. The role of the ballot isto evaluate alternatives to the status quo that allows for critical discussionand problematizes status quo issuesKochi, Queen's University School of Law lecturer, and Ordan, linguist, 08 (Tarikand Noam, Borderlands Volume 7 Number 3, 2008, "An Argument for the Global Suicide ofHumanity," p. 3) However, is the form of reflection offered by Hawking broad or critical enough? Does his mode of reflection pay enough attentionto the irredeemable moments of destruction, harm, pain and suffering inflicted historically by human action upon the non-human

world? There are , after all, a variety of negative consequences of human action, moments ofdestruction, moments of suffering, which may not be redeemable or ever made better .Conversely there are a number of conceptions of the good in which humans do not take centre stage at the expense of others.

What we try to do in this paper is to draw out some of the consequences of reflecting morebroadly upon the negative costs of human activity in the context of environmentalcatastrophe . This involves re-thinking a general idea of progress through the historical andconceptual lenses of speciesism, colonialism, survival and complicity. Our proposed conclusionis that the only appropriate moral response to a history of human destructive action is to giveup our claims to biological supremacy and to sacrifice our form of life so as to give an eternal


6/49

gift to others. From the outset it is important to make clear that the argument for the globalsuicide of humanity is presented as a thought experiment. The purpose of such a proposal inresponse to Hawking is to help show how a certain conception of modernity, of which hisapproach is representative, is problematic. Taking seriously the idea of global suicide is oneway of throwing into question an ideology or dominant discourse of modernist-humanistaction. [3] By imagining an alternative to the existing state of affairs, absurd as it may seem to somereaders by its nihilistic and radical solution, we wish to open up a ground for a critical discussion ofmodernity and its negative impacts on both human and non-human animals, as well as on theenvironment. [4] In this respect, by giving voice to the idea of a human-free world, we attempt to draw attention to some ofthe asymmetries of environmental reality and to give cause to question why attempts to build bridges from the human to the non-human have, so far, been unavailing.


7/49

1NC with Rights Malthus

The aff is anthropocentric notions of human progress and equality strengthenanthro notions anthro justifies oppression turns the affirmative

Bell, York University department of education, and Russell, Lakehead Universityassociate professor, 2k (Anne C. and Constance L., department of education, YorkUniversity, Canada, and Canadian Journal of Environmental Education, Beyond Human, BeyondWords: Anthropocentrism, Critical Pedagogy, and the Poststructuralist Turn, p. 192-194,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF EDUCATION 25, 3 (2000):188 203, http://www.csse-scee.ca/CJE/Articles/FullText/CJE25-3/CJE25-3-bell.pdf)Bowers (1993a, 1993b) has identified a number of root metaphors or ana - logs in critical pedagogy thatreinforce the problem of anthropocentric thinking . These include the notion of change asinherently progressive, faith in the power of rational thought, and an understanding ofindividuals as potentially free, voluntaristic entities who will take responsibility for creatingthemselves when freed from societal forms of oppression (1993a, pp. 25 26). Such assumptions ,

argues Bowers, are part of the Enlighten- ment legacy on which critical pedagogy, and indeedliberal education generally, is based . In other words, they are culturally specific and stem from aperiod in Western history when the modern industrial world view was beginning to takeshape . To be fair, Bowers understates the extent to which these assumptions are being questioned within critical pedagogy (e.g.,Giroux, 1995; Peters, 1995; Shapiro, 1994; Weiler & Mitchell, 1992, pp. 1, 5). Nevertheless, his main point is well taken:

proponents of critical pedagogy have yet to confront the ecological consequences of aneducational process that reinforces beliefs and practices formed when unlimited economicexpansion and social progress seemed promised (Bowers, 1993b, p. 3). What happens when the expansion ofhuman possibilities is equated with the possibilities of con- sumption? How is educating for freedom predicated onthe exploitation of the nonhuman? Such queries push against taken-for-granted understand-ings of human, nature, self, and community, and thus bring into focus the underlying tensionbetween freedom as it is constituted within critical pedagogy and the limits that emerge

through consideration of humans interdependence with the more -than-human world . Thistension is symptomatic of anthropocentrism. Humans are assumed to be free agents separatefrom and pitted against the rest of nature, our fulfillment predicated on overcoming materialconstraints. This assumption of human difference and superiority, central to Western thought since Aristotle (Abram,1996, p. 77), has long been used to justify the exploitation of nature by and for humankind (Evernden, 1992, p. 96). It has also been used to justify the exploitation of human groups (e.g., women,Blacks, queers, indigenous peoples) deemed to be closer to nature that is, animalistic, irrational,savage, or uncivilized (Gaard, 1997; Haraway, 1989, p. 30; Selby, 1995, pp. 17 20; Spiegel, 1988). This organicapartheid (Evernden, 1992, p. 119) is bolstered by the belief that language is an exclusively humanproperty that elevates mere biological existence to meaningful, social existence . Understood in thisway, language undermines our embodied sense of interdependence with a more-than-human world. Rather than being a

point of entry into the webs of communication all around us, language becomes a mediumthrough which we set ourselves apart and above. This view of language is deeply embeddedin the conceptual framework of critical pedagogy, including poststructuralist approaches. Sotoo is the human/nature dichotomy upon which it rests. When writers assume that it islanguage that enables us to think, speak and give meaning to the world around us, thatmeaning and consciousness do not exist outside language (Weedon, 1987, p. 32) and thatsubjectivity is constructed by and in language (Luke & Luke, 1995, p. 378), then their transformativeprojects are encoded so as to exclude any consideration of the nonhuman. Such assumptions


8/49

effectively remove all subjects from nature . As Evernden (1992) puts it, if subjectivity, willing,valuation, and meaning are securely lodged in the domain of humanity, the possibility ofencountering anything more than material objects in nature is nil (p. 108). What is forgotten? Whatis erased when the real is equated with a proliferating culture of commodified signs (see Luke &Luke, 1995, on Baudrillard)? To begin, we forget that we humans are surrounded by an astonishingdiversity of life forms. We no longer perceive or give expression to a world in whicheverything has intelligence, personality, and voice . Polyphonous echoes are reduced to homophony, a termKane (1994) uses to denote the reduced sound of human language when it is used under the assumption that spee ch is somethingbelonging only to human beings (p. 192). We forget too what Abram (1996) describes as the gestural, somatic dimension oflanguage, its sensory and physical resonance that we share with all expressive bodies (p. 80). The vast forgetting to which thesescholars allude is a culturally and historically specific phenomenon. In Western culture, explains Evernden (1992), it is to the

Renaissance that we owe the modern conceptualization of nature from which all human qualities, including linguisticexpression, have been segregated and dismissed as projection. Once scoured of anynormative content assigned to humanity, nature is strictly constrained, knowable, and ours tointerrogate (pp. 28, 39 40, 48). It is objectified as a thing, whereas any status as agent or social being is reserved for humans(Haraway, 1988, p. 592).

The alternative is to endorse global suicide of humanity. The role of the ballot isto evaluate alternatives to the status quo that allows for critical discussionand problematizes status quo issuesKochi, Queen's University School of Law lecturer, and Ordan, linguist, 08 (Tarikand Noam, Borderlands Volume 7 Number 3, 2008, "An Argument for the Global Suicide ofHumanity," p. 3) However, is the form of reflection offered by Hawking broad or critical enough? Does his mode of reflection pay enough attentionto the irredeemable moments of destruction, harm, pain and suffering inflicted historically by human action upon the non-human

world? There are , after all, a variety of negative consequences of human action, moments ofdestruction, moments of suffering, which may not be redeemable or ever made better .Conversely there are a number of conceptions of the good in which humans do not take centre stage at the expense of others.

What we try to do in this paper is to draw out some of the consequences of reflecting more

broadly upon the negative costs of human activity in the context of environmentalcatastrophe . This involves re-thinking a general idea of progress through the historical andconceptual lenses of speciesism, colonialism, survival and complicity. Our proposed conclusionis that the only appropriate moral response to a history of human destructive action is to giveup our claims to biological supremacy and to sacrifice our form of life so as to give an eternalgift to others. From the outset it is important to make clear that the argument for the globalsuicide of humanity is presented as a thought experiment. The purpose of such a proposal inresponse to Hawking is to help show how a certain conception of modernity, of which hisapproach is representative, is problematic. Taking seriously the idea of global suicide is oneway of throwing into question an ideology or dominant discourse of modernist-humanistaction. [3] By imagining an alternative to the existing state of affairs, absurd as it may seem to some

readers by its nihilistic and radical solution, we wish to open up a ground for a critical discussion ofmodernity and its negative impacts on both human and non-human animals, as well as on theenvironment. [4] In this respect, by giving voice to the idea of a human-free world, we attempt to draw attention to some ofthe asymmetries of environmental reality and to give cause to question why attempts to build bridges from the human to the non-human have, so far, been unavailing.


9/49

2NC Blocks


10/49

2NC Overview

K outweighs and turns the case

a. Our Bell evidence indicates that the 1AC is rooted in a humanistworldview whereby the issues worth fixing are dictated by the extent towhich they benefit human life that ensures their impacts continue andtransforms the non-human as something to be dominated

b. Their anthropocentric notions create a false dichotomy of the human vs.non-human squo inequities become impossible to fix because we areblinded by our humanist relations with the world we indict humanismas being the creator of these issues of violence

Impact debate

Our Bell evidence indicates that this perpetuates the exploitation of nature inthe name of human progress that results in extinction and turns their impacts

Human rights violations become inevitable Bell also indicates that a world inwhich the humanist assumptions of the 1AC are not challenged their impactscontinue humans who are portrayed as closer to nature considered savagesbecome the subject of human domination and justify nature as something to bebrought under human control

Humans cannot be saved and we control the root cause the impacts theyoutline are the result of humanitys capability to enact uniquely organizedforms of violence and destructionKochi, Queen's University School of Law lecturer, and Ordan, linguist, 08 (Tarikand Noam, Borderlands Volume 7 Number 3, 2008, "An Argument for the Global Suicide ofHumanity," p. 9-10)Within the picture many paint of humanity, events such as the Holocaust are considered as anexception, an aberration. The Holocaust is often portrayed as an example of evil , a moment ofhatred, madness and cruelty (cf. the differing accounts of evil given in Neiman, 2004). The event is also treated as onethrough which humanity might comprehend its own weakness and draw strength, via theresolve that such actions will never happen again. However, if we take seriously the differingways in which the Holocaust was evil, then one must surely include along side it the almostuncountable numbers of genocides that have occurred throughout human history. Hence, ifwe are to think of the content of the human heritage , then this must include the annihilationof indigenous peoples and their cultures across the globe and the manner in which theirbeliefs , behaviours and social practices have been erased from what the people of the West generally consider to be the contentof a human heritage. Again the history of colonialism is telling here. It reminds us exactly how normal, regularand mundane acts of annihilation of different forms of human life and culture have beenthroughout human history . Indeed the history of colonialism , in its various guises, points to the factthat so many of our legal institutions and forms of ethical life (i.e. nation-states which pride


11/49

themselves on protecting human rights through the rule of law) have been founded uponcolonial violence , war and the appropriation of other peoples land (Schmitt, 2003; Benjamin, 1986).Further, the history of colonialism highlights the central function of race war that oftenunderlies human social organisation and many of its legal and ethical systems of thought (Foucault, 2003). This history of modern colonialism thus presents a key to understanding that eventssuch as the Holocaust are not an aberration and exception but are closer to the norm , and sadly,lie at the heart of any heritage of humanity. After all, all too often the European colonisation of the globe was

justified by arguments that indigenous inhabitants were racially inferior and in someinstances that they were closer to apes than to humans (Diamond, 2006). Such violence justifiedby an erroneous view of race is in many ways merely an extension of an underlying attitudeof speciesism involving a long history of killing and enslavement of non-human species byhumans . Such a connection between the two histories of inter-human violence (via the mythical notion of differing humanraces) and inter - species violence, is well expressed in Isaac Bashevis Singers comment that whereas humans consider themselvesthe crown of creation, for animals all people are Nazis and animal life is an eternal Treblinka (Singer, 1968, p.750). Certainly

many organisms use force to survive and thrive at the expense of their others. Humans arenot special in this regard. However humans, due a particular form of self-awareness andability to plan for the future, have the capacity to carry out highly organised forms of violenceand destruction (i.e. the Holocaust; the massacre and enslavement of indigenous peoples by Europeans) and thecapacity to develop forms of social organisation and communal life in which harm andviolence are organised and regulated . It is perhaps this capacity for reflection upon the merits of harm and violence(the moral reflection upon the good and bad of violence) which gives humans a special place within the food chain. Nonetheless,with these capacities come responsibility and our proposal of global suicide is directed at bringing into full view the issue of humanmoral responsibility.

Human superiority is socially constructed and not factually accurate viewingevery being as significant allows for a radical change in the way we givemeaning to the worldBell, York University department of education, and Russell, Lakehead University

associate professor, 2k (Anne C. and Constance L., department of education, YorkUniversity, Canada, and Canadian Journal of Environmental Education, Beyond Human, BeyondWords: Anthropocentrism, Critical Pedagogy, and the Poststructuralist Turn, CANADIANJOURNAL OF EDUCATION 25, 3 (2000):188 203, http://www.csse-scee.ca/CJE/Articles/FullText/CJE25-3/CJE25-3-bell.pdf, p. 195-97)The human/nature dichotomy is not a frame of reference common to all cultures, andalthough it prevails today in Western societies, even here there are and always have beenalternative ways of understanding and giving expression to a more-than-human world . These canbe found, for example, in myth (Kane, 1994, p. 14), poetic expression, certain branches of philosophy and environmental thought,

natural history, and childrens literature and films (Wilson, 1991, pp. 128 139, 154). Even within the natural sciences,voices attest to the meaningful existence of nonhuman beings as subjects (McVay, 1993). In animalbehaviour research, for instance, numerous studies have challenged the assertion of humansuperiority based on a narrow definition of language that excludes nonhuman communication .Chimpanzee Washoe and orangutan Chantek use American Sign Language, and other primates, like bonobo Kanzi, are fluent insymbolic language, thereby altering the boundaries commonly drawn between language and mere communication (Gardner,

Gardner, & Canfort, 1989; Miles, 1994; Savage-Rumbaugh, Shanker, & Taylor, 1998). And though the bilingual greatapes may exhibit language patterns the most similar to those of humans, there are manyexamples of sophisticated communication in other animals, including mammals, birds, andinsects (Griffin, 1992). Meeting the criteria of language implies , of course, that these studies compareand judge other animals against a human yardstick. In other words, a hierarchical divide is still


12/49

assumed , although its position may shift somewhat to include, on humanitys side, some ofthe higher animals. For a more radical reframing, one that seeks to acknowledge all life forms as subjects of significance,let us turn to the work of philosopher David Abram . Drawing from phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Abram (1996)argues that all sensing bodies are active, open forms con- stantly adjusting to a world that isitself continually shifting (p. 49). To demonstrate how all beings incessantly improvise theirrelations to other things he describes the spontaneous creativity of a spider : Consider a spiderweaving its web, for instance, and the assumption still held by many scientists that the behavior of such a diminutive creature isthoroughly programmed in its genes. Certainly, the spider has received a rich genetic in - heritance from its parents andpredecessors. Whatever instructions, however, are enf olded within the living genome, they can hardly predict the specifics of themicroterrain within which the spider may find itself at any particular moment. They could hardly have determined in advance theexact distances between the cave wall and the branch that the spider is now employing as an anchorage point for her current web,or the exact strength of the monsoon rains that make web-spinning a bit more difficult on this evening. And so the genome couldnot explicitly have commanded the order of every flexion and extension of her various limbs as she weaves this web into its place.However complex are the inherited programs, patterns, or predispositions, they must still be adapted to the immediate situa tion

in which the spider finds itself. However det erminate ones genetic inheritance, it must still, as it were,be woven into the present, an activity that necessarily involves both a receptivity to thespecific shapes and textures of that present and a spontaneous creativity in adjusting oneself(and on es inheritance) to those contours . (Abram, 1996, p. 50) An equally illuminating insect story, intended toevoke, once again, the subjective world of a nonhuman being, is found in Everndens The Natural Alien (1985, pp. 79 80). Borrowing

from the work of biologist Jakob von Uexkull, Evernden invites readers to imagine that we are walking through a meadow andthat we discern a soap bubble around each creature to represent its own world, filled with the perceptions which it alone knows (p. 79). He then attempts to describe what might be the world of a wood tick. The wood tick, heexplains, is literally and figuratively blind to the world as we know it. What we readilyperceive about our environment would be unknown, unknowable, and irrelevant to her. Herworld is composed of three elements: light, sweat, and heat. These are all that she needs tocomplete her life cycle . Light will lead her to the top of a bush, where she will cling (for as long as 18 years!) until the smellof sweat alerts her to a passing animal. She will then drop, and if she lands on a warm animal, she will indulge in a blood meal, fall to

the ground, lay her eggs, and die. Like Abram, Evernden (1985) challenges commonplace, mechanisticassumptions that reduce other life forms to programmed automatons and intimates instead ameaningful life-world completely unlike and outside our own: To speak of reflexes and instincts is to obscurethe essential point that the ticks world is a world, every bit as valid and adequate as our own .There is a subject, and like all subjects it has its world . . . The tick is able to occupy a world that is per- ceptually meaningful to it. Outof the thousands or millions of kinds of information that might be had, the tick sees only what is of significance to it. The world istailored to the animal; they are entirely complementary . . . This is quite a different view of existence from our usual one in whichthe animal is simply an exploiter of certain natural resources. We are not talking just about observable interactions betweensubjects and objects but rather about a very complete interrelation of self and world, so complete that the world could serve as adefinition of the self. Without the tick there is no tick-world, no tick-space, no tick-time, no tick-reality. (pp. 80 81)

Everndens remarks are significant for the possibilities they open up in our understanding both of the nonhuman and ofourselves. On one hand, they contest the limited notion that awareness is a specifically humanattribute . On the other, they remind us that we humans too have bodies that respond to light, sweat, and heat; we too know theworld through our bodies in a way that is not entirely dependent upon language; and this bodily knowledge plays an important rolein defining our world and giving meaning to it.


13/49

2NC Framework

The role of the ballot is to endorse the team that best challenges theanthropocentric notions implicit in human experience

The K is a prior question policymaking fails to call into question the inherenthumanist filter through which all action of the 1AC happens means the 1AConly produces bad policy disad to fiat

Their education will always be co-opted our Bell evidence indicates thatanthropocentric notions prop a flawed pedagogical system in which the focus isshifted away from individual agency that ensures that the domination of non-human life is perpetuated

Their calls for an active discussion simply link harder to the kritik theirmovement creates a space for discussion that continues to exclude non-humanlife which means their movements ultimately get co-opted anyways

Analyzing the linguistic construct of the 1AC is key to social changeBell, York University department of education, and Russell, Lakehead Universityassociate professor, 2k (Anne C. and Constance L., department of education, YorkUniversity, Canada, and Canadian Journal of Environmental Education, Beyond Human, BeyondWords: Anthropocentrism, Critical Pedagogy, and the Poststructuralist Turn, CANADIANJOURNAL OF EDUCATION 25, 3 (2000):188 203, http://www.csse-scee.ca/CJE/Articles/FullText/CJE25-3/CJE25-3-bell.pdf, p. 198-99)So far, however, such queries in critical pedagogy have been limited by their neglect of theecological contexts of which students are a part and of relationships extending beyond thehuman sphere. The gravity of this oversight is brought sharply into focus by writers interested in environmental thought,particularly in the cultural and historical dimensions of the environmental crisis. For example, Nelson (1993) contends that ourinability to acknowledge our human embeddedness in nature results in our failure tounderstand what sustains us. We become inattentive to our very real dependence on othersand to the ways our actions affect them. Educators , therefore, would do well to draw on theliterature of environmental thought in order to come to grips with the misguided sense ofindependence, premised on freedom from nature, that informs such notions asempowerment . Further, calls for e ducational practices situated in the life-worlds of students go hand in hand with critiquesof disembodied approaches to education. In both cases, critical pedagogy challenges the liberal notion of education whose sole aimis the development of the individual, rational mind (Giroux, 1991, p. 24; McKenna, 1991, p. 121; Shapiro, 1994). Theorists drawattention to the importance of nonverbal discourse (e.g., Lewis & Simon, 1986, p. 465) and to the somatic character of learning (e.g.,

Shapiro, 1994, p. 67), both overshadowed by the intellectual authority long granted to rationality and science (Giroux, 1995; Peters,1995; S. Taylor, 1991). Describing an emerging discourse of the body that looks at how bodies are represented and inserted into

the social order, S. Taylor (1991) cites as examples the work of Peter McLaren, Michelle Fine, and Philip Corrigan. Acomplementary vein of enquiry is being pursued by environmental researchers and educatorscritical of the privileging of science and abstract thinking in education. They understandlearning to be mediated not only through our minds but also through our bodies. Seeking toacknowledge and create space for sensual, emotional, tacit, and communal knowledge, theyadvocate approaches to education grounded in, for example, nature experience and


14/49

environmental practice (Bell, 1997; Brody, 1997; Weston, 1996). Thus, whereas both critical pedagogy andenvironmental education offer a critique of disembodied thought, one draws attention to theways in which the body is situated in culture (Shapiro, 1994) and to the social construction ofbodies as they are constituted within discourses of race, class, gender, age and other forms ofoppression (S. Taylor, 1991, p. 61). The other emphasizes and celebrates our embodied relat edness to the more-than-humanworld and to the myriad life forms of which it is comprised (Payne, 1997; Russell & Bell, 1996). Given their different foci, each stream

of enquiry stands to be enriched by a sharing of insights. Finally, with regard to the poststructuralist turn in educational theory,ongoing investigations stand to greatly enhance a revisioning of environmental education. A growing number of environmentaleducators question the empirical-analytical tradition and its focus on technical and behavioural aspects of curriculum (A. Gough,

1997; Robottom, 1991). Advocating more interpretive, critical approaches, these educators contestthe discursive frameworks (e.g., positivism, empiricism, rationalism) that mask the values,beliefs, and assumptions underlying information, and thus the cultural and politicaldimensions of the problems being considered (A. Gough, 1997; Huckle, 1999; Lousley, 1999). Teachingabout ecological processes and environmental hazards in a supposedly objective and rationalmanner is understood to belie the fact that knowledge is socially constructed and thereforepartial (A. Gough, 1997; Robertson, 1994; Robottom, 1991; Stevenson, 1993).


15/49

2NC AT: Perm

If the perm still links its severance thats a voter for fairness and gro und wedlose all advocacies

If we win framework or root cause the perm does nothing

Framework debate proves that their starting point is flawed operating underhumanist notions reinforce the status quo and ensure worse forms of violence

any perm shifts the framing question their method is _____ - you cant shiftout of that

Doesnt matter if you leave the distinction unquestioned only the alt solvesKochi, Queen's University School of Law lecturer, and Ordan, linguist, 08 (Tarikand Noam, Borderlands Volume 7 Number 3, 2008, "An Argument for the Global Suicide of

Humanity," p. 5-6)There continues to be a debate over the extent to which humans have caused environmental problems such as global warming (asopposed to natural, cyclical theories of the earths temperature change) and over whether phenomena such as global warming can

be halted or reversed. Our position is that regardless of where one stands within these debates it is clear that humans haveinflicted degrees of harm upon non-human animals and the natural environment. And fromthis point we suggest that it is the operation of speciesism as colonialism which must beaddressed . One approach is of course to adopt the approach taken by Singer and many within the animal rights movement andremove our species, homo sapiens, from the centre of all moral discourse. Such an approach would thereby take into account notonly human life, but also the lives of other species, to the extent that the living environment as a whole can come to be consideredthe proper subject of morality. We would suggest, however, that this philosophical approach can be taken a number of steps

further. If the standpoint that we have a moral responsibility towards the environment in whichall sentient creatures live is to be taken seriously, then we perhaps have reason to questionwhether there remains any strong ethical grounds to justify the further existence of humanity .For example, if one considers the modern scientific practice of experimenting on animals, both the notions of progress andspeciesism are implicitly drawn upon within the moral reasoning of scientists in their justification of committing violence against

non- human animals. The typical line of thinking here is that because animals are valued less thanhumans they can be sacrificed for the purpose of expanding scientific knowledge focussedupon improving human life. Certainly some within the scientific community, such asphysiologist Colin Blakemore, contest aspects of this claim and argue that experimentation onanimals is beneficial to both human and non- human animals (e.g. Grasson, 2000, p.30). Suchclaims are disingenuous , however, in that they hide the relative distinctions of value thatunderlie a moral justification for sacrifice within the practice of experimentation (cf. LaFollette &Shanks, 1997, p.255). If there is a benefit to non-human animals this is only incidental, what remainscentral is a practice of sacrificing the lives of other species for the benefit of humans . Rather thanreject this common reasoning of modern science we argue that it should be reconsidered upon the basis of species equality. That is,

modern science needs to ask the question of: Who is the best candidate for sacrifice for thegood of the environment and all species concerned? The moral response to the violence,suffering and damage humans have inflicted upon this earth and its inhabitants might then beto argue for the sacrifice of the human species. The moral act would be the global suicide ofhumanity . This notion of global human suicide clearly goes against commonly celebrated and deeply held views of the inherentvalue of humanity and perhaps contradicts an instinctive or biological desire for survival. Indeed the picture painted byHawking presents a modern humanity which, through its own intellectual, technical and moralaction, colonises another planet or finds some other way to survive . His idea is driven by the desire for


16/49

the modern human, as we know it, to survive. Yet, what exact aspect of our species would survive, letalone progress, in such a future? In the example of the colonisation of another planet, wouldhuman survival be merely genetic or would it also be cultural? Further, even if we can pinpoint what wouldsurvive is there a strong moral argument that the human species should survive?

Every individual is complicit in speciesist violence only a complete rejectionsolvesKochi, Queen's University School of Law lecturer, and Ordan, linguist, 08 (Tarikand Noam, Borderlands Volume 7 Number 3, 2008, "An Argument for the Global Suicide ofHumanity," p. 13-14)What helps to render a certain type of action problematic is each individuals complicity inthe practice of speciesist violence . That is, even if one is aware of the ways in which modern lifedestroys or adversely affects the environment and inflicts suffering upon non- human animals,one cannot completely subtract ones self from a certain responsibility for and complicity inthis . Even if you are conscious of the problem you cannot but take part in doing evil by themere fact of participating within modern life . Take for example the problematic position of environmental activists

who courageously sacrifice personal wealth and leisure time in their fight against environmental destruction. While activistsassume a sense of historical responsibly for the violence of the human species and act so as tostop the continuation of this violence, these actors are still somewhat complicit in a modernsystem of violence due to fact that they live in modern, industrial societies . The activist consumes,acquires and spends capital, uses electricity, pays taxes, and accepts the legitimacy of particular governments within the state even

if they campaign against government policies. The bottom line is that all of these actions contribute in some wayto the perpetuation of a larger process that moves humanity in a particular direction even ifthe individual personally, or collectively with others, tries to act to counter this direction.Despite peoples good intentions, damage is encapsulated in nearly every human action inindustrial societies, whether we are aware of it or not . In one sense, the human individuals modern complicityin environme ntal violence represents something of a bizarre symmetry to Hannah Arendts notion of the banality of evil (Arendt,1994). For Arendt, the Nazi regime was an emblem of modernity, being a collection of official institutions (scientific, educational,military etc.) in which citizens and soldiers alike served as clerks in a bureaucratic mechanism run by the state. These individualscommitted evil, but they did so in a very banal manner: fitting into the state mechanism, following orders, filling in paperwork,

working in factories, driving trucks and generally respecting the rule of law. In this way perhaps all individuals within themodern industrial world carry out a banal evil against the environment simply by going towork, sitting in their offices and living in homes attached to a power grid . Conversely, thoseindividuals who are driven by a moral intention to not do evil and act so as to save theenvironment, are drawn back into a banality of the good. By their ability to effect change inonly very small aspects of their daily life, or in political-social life more generally, modernindividuals are forced to participate in the active destruction of the environment even if theyare the voices of contrary intention . What is banal in this sense is not the l ack of a definite moral intention but,rather, the way in which the individuals or institutions participation in everyday modern life, and the unintentional contr ibution toenvironmental destruction therein, contradicts and counteracts the smaller acts of good intention.


17/49


18/49

2NC Root Cause Greek Ethics

Speciesism provides a superior explanation for the root cause of their harms the acts of exclusion and violence outlined in the 1AC are only made possible

because of the human/non-human divide rooted in Aristotelian ethics. Theaffirmative is an attempt to posit themselves as Gods acting as the savior of

___________.Gor dilho 9, Assistant Professor at Universidade Federal da Bahia in Brazil (Heron Josde Santana, he teaches environmental law & constitutional law, he is also a public prosecutor, Wildlife and the BrazilianAbolitionist Movement, 2009,http://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?collection=&handle=hein.journals/janimlaw5&div=9&id=&page= , fulltext availablehere : http://www.abolicionismoanimal.org.br/artigos/wldilefe_and_the_brazilian_abolitionist_movement.pdf, njw) Speciesism is a term coined in 1970 by the psychologist Richard Ryder to make a parallel between our attitudes towards otherspecies and racist attitudes. Both represent biased behavior or prejudice in favor of interests of the members of our own group

against the interests of the members of others. Although man and animals share birth, death, pain,pleasure , among other things, western tradition identifies huge differences between them, mainlyconcerning body and soul, instinct and reasoning . The idea of soul, according to Durkheim, came toprimitive people through their dream experience which led to the idea of separating thebody from the soul, the latter capable of leaving the body. For primitive people, representations of the worldwhile awake or sleeping had the same value. This duplicity was only possible if they accepted that the body has a soul, made outof subtle and ethereal material able to pass through pores of the body and go anywhere. Later, primitive man perceived that thedead often participated in their dreams thus giving rise to a third element: the spirit. Disconnected from any embodied form andfree in the space, a spirit unlike the soul which spends most of the time inside the body is immortal, and even after death

continues, in particular the spirits of men who have special virtues (mana)5. The idea of linking each soul to itscorresponding body (soul as an incarnated spirit) passed into the Greek tradition, and according to Aristotle the soul is conceived as the substance of the body, a vital principle of all livingbeings. Like sight is to the eyes, the soul is to the body6 . Analyzing the faculties of the soul,Aristotle says that feeding is common to all living beings and sensitivity is common toanimals , however, only the human soul has intellectual ability (nos), and is able to think and

communicate ideas through language. For Aristotle the intellectual soul is the spirit itself,another kind of soul separate from the body which can be divided in two parts: the sensitive spirit (receptive) and effective spirit (active), the former functions as matter (potential) and the latter as form (act)7. Thus, animalsare considered beings with their own life/soul (anima ), but with no spirit. It is only throughinvoluntary natural impulses that birds build nests and spiders webs . Only the human spirit

is able to deliberate . The sensitive spirit is connected to the sensitive soul which transforms matter into thoughts,while the active spirit, unlike other faculties of the soul, is not linked to the body and is therefore immortal. However, thoughtsare only born from feeling, and after death the spirit is no longer individual but collective. This refutes the theory of individual

soul advocated by Plato. In short, as well as the physical body (soma ) and life (anima ), rational man hasa third element which supposedly sets him apart from other living beings: a spiritindependent of body and able to learn, understand and make judgments or have opinions

based on reasoning , consciousness, thoughts, will, and so on. Consequently, as Aristotelianethics are teleological, beings which occupy the lower rungs of the Great Chain of Beings

are there to be used by animals which occupy the upper rungs. Therefore animals like

women, slaves and foreigners are there to be used by rational man 8. From this point of viewrationality is considered to mark the difference between men and other living beings, nearest genus;animal , and by specific difference, reasoning . It is by the souls intellectual function that menlocate themselves in the Great Chain of Beings, putting animals below them and God
http://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?collection=&handle=hein.journals/janimlaw5&div=9&id=&pagehttp://www.abolicionismoanimal.org.br/artigos/wldilefe_and_the_brazilian_abolitionist_movement.pdfhttp://www.abolicionismoanimal.org.br/artigos/wldilefe_and_the_brazilian_abolitionist_movement.pdfhttp://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?collection=&handle=hein.journals/janimlaw5&div=9&id=&page


19/49

above them. This distinction does not function only to differentiate men from animals like a

beak, wings and the ability to fly would distinguish birds from other living beings but it also proves their

proximity to God 9. Stoics put moral problems before theoretical problems and with

Aristotelian ethics both have had a great influence on western thought . For them, the ideal

state is calm suppressing emotions and desires. Unlike animals who act out of instinct, man isguided by reason which enables him to be aware of the immutable rules of natural law. Fromthis Stoic understanding of logos (speaking, ability to reason ) comes the definition of man as arational animal (zoon logikon) and animals as beings that can not speak (aloga zoa). The Stoic andAristotelian tradition gave Roman Law and Christianity the notion that non-human animalsare not worthy of any moral consideration. These ideas passed into Common Law and Civil

Law traditions and remain today .


20/49

2NC Root Cause Race/Slavery

Anti-blackness is rooted in speciesism historically the black body has beendepicted as something less than human and a pollutant upon the environment

in order to justify racism and social exclusion.Mysak 10, Ph.D. candidate in Philosophy (Mark, The Environmental is Political: Exploring the Geographyof Environmental Justice, Dissertation prepared for Ph.D. from the University of North Texas, August 2010, p. 168-171,http://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc30497/m2/1/high_res_d/dissertation.pdf, njw)

In the United States, African Americans (but also Latinos and Hispanics) exceedingly live in heavilyindustrialized and polluted urban environments. These places are often called ghettoes, slums, or the inner-city. They are usually situated on the outskirts of a citys business and shopping districts, physically bounded and concealed byfreeways, factories and warehouses. In the past, African Americans were forcefully constrained to these places by segregation laws.What is puzzling is that racialized demographic patterns have persisted to this day. A frequently cited explanation is class-based:

minority groups are poor and tend to inhabit polluted urban environments due to low property andrental costs, while the more affluent, predominantly white , relocate to clean suburban areas . Yet, arace-based explanation also suggests itself. Because poverty is associated with crime (burglary, drug trafficking, prostitution),

minority groups live in areas portrayed as cesspools of pollution , disease, corruption, violence, and socialdecay. These communities are relatively powerless to influence the ways they are representedon television and in newspapers which solely report incidents of crime and violence in their neighborhoods. Thus,communities of color are not only economically disadvantaged, but they are also culturally devalued because they live in places of misrecognition . Poverty and negative cultural images intersect to discursively produce stereotyped representations of minority groups inhabiting stigmatized environments . Accordingly, they are construed as human trash living in places

filled with waste. Historically, blatant racism depicted African Americans as descended from

a continent plunged in darkness, primitivism, and violence a place without history according toHegels philosophy of history with blackness representing the space of nothingness according to Mills (2001, 83).5 Asincreasing numbers of slaves were shipped to southern plantations, elite whites feared an

uprising that would spread Africas wild savageness and infect civilization . Once slavery wasabolished following the Civil War, many freed slaves , including poor immigrants and the working class, relocated tonorthern cities in search of work; as a result , cities were frequently perceived as urban

jungles and urban wilderness , breeding crime and corruption due to mass unemployment and poverty. To this

day, metaphors of the city as the frontier, jungle, and wilderness reveal a lot about the social

status of their inhabitants . Lawson (2001, 42) argues that negative attitudes about inner-city neighborhoods intersectwith racial categories to foster negative racial sentiments about black Americans, and this has adverse impacts on the lives ofthe poor black people who live in cities. Residential location is therefore supposedly indicative of the types of people who live

there. More affluent groups do not enter inner-city environments because they are dirty anddangerous. Fear of the other is intimately associated with specific places ; the desolate streets ofrough black neighborhoods are avoided or passed through as quickly as possible. In accord with the concept of place-basedidentity developed in chapter III, I am arguing that representations of urban places and the group identities therein reinforce eachother through their co-constitutive social constructions. In what follows I focus on African Americans to show how theyare symbolically represented as embodying the negative qualities characterizing their polluted urban environments . One reason is because black is symbolically associated with trash. Mills (2001, 83)declares: Their blackness signifies dirt, death, evil; (illicit) sex, shit, excretion; diabolism, savagery, lack of civilization; and the mostmanual of manual labor, shit work. These images and associations enter into a dark synergy with one another, generating an all-purpose negative signifier, conceptualized in the vocabulary of pollution and disease and threat to civilization. To put it bluntly,

African Americans are portrayed as violent, dirty and savage , hence black trash littering analready dirty environment . Conversely, urban polluted environments are anthropomorphized
http://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc30497/m2/1/high_res_d/dissertation.pdfhttp://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc30497/m2/1/high_res_d/dissertation.pdf


21/49

as having the devalued traits characterizing the black bodies that contaminate them ; pollutedplaces are uncivilized, wild and dangerous, hence black. Skin color is a negative signifier for polluted regions blackness signifiesdirt and excrement and dirty neighborhoods reflect the presumed status of their inhabitants, associations which are mirrored inthe names of such places: Niggertown, Darktown, Bronz eville, the black belt, the ghetto, the inner city (Mills 2001, 87). Haraway(1991, 223) says that colored neighborhoods symbolize the dark source of infection, pollution, disorder, and so on, that threatento overwhelm white manhood (cities, civil ization, the family, the white personal body) with its decadent emanations.

Consequently, black bodies themselves are perceived as garbage that must be contained in specific areas . This shows how perceptions of devalued groups and their environments reinforce each other to produce places of misrecognition: while polluted spaces are raced, peoples of color are

naturalized as waste.

The K is a prior question to the affirmative otherwise challenging anti-blackness gets corrupted by anthropocentric discourse only the alternativesdiscourse solves.Jackson, no date, studies the intersection of Animal Studies, Queer Theory, andAfrican Diasporic Feminism (Zakiyyah, UC Berkeley & Indiana University, quotation from Zakiyyah Jackson postedin the comments section on April 10, 2011 (link to website broken), http://www.theoria.ca/theoria/?p=1179, njw)My dissertation Becoming Human: Gender, Sexuality, and Species in Afro -Modernity demonstrates that t here is a strand of black(anti)humanist thought that provides crucial interventions into the racialization of the human/animal border. Through historical

analysis, I reveal that the animal and the black are generic categories that mutually reinforceeach other, as one term lends credibility to the other, in the history of western modernity . Aswe now know, what we deem animal includes forms of life that have widely divergentphysiognomic, cognitive, and phenomenal experiences casting doubt over any n otion of an animal essence.So, why do we need a discourse on the animal ? What work is this generic construction doing culturally? Whatforms of knowledge and power is it stabilizing? I contend that the bifurcation of forms of life as primarily or exclusively human orelse animal is a flashpoint in European anxieties about African slavery and colonial expansionism. In this context, the animal and

the black became conjoined and mutually reinforcing tropes in liberal humanist discourse and practice. T hus, if we want to

seriously interrogate our cultures continual investment in (anti)blackness, we must go

beyond perceiving bestialization as an unfortunate legacy of racism that can be resolved conclusivelythrough the expansion of universal humanity. When we present universal humanity as a solution, we fail to appreciate thatin a post-Darwinian context, inclusion rather than exclusion, is the primary modality of reproducing

blackness as the animal within the human , black people as the lived border dividing human

and animal forms of life . Instead, we must include an interrogation of the discourse of the

animal as such, as the discourse of species is central to the logic and practice of animalizingblack gender and sexuality in law, philosophy, science, neoliberalism, and popular culture . Iargue that our failure to interrogate the discourse of species has allowed blackness to remain

vulnerable to its appropriation by species discourse . As I show in my dissertation, African diasporic cultureprov ide models for disconnecting black personhood from the trope of the animal, while also questioning the epistemic andmaterial terms under which the specter of animal life acquires its authority. In the final analysis, I suggest that the culturalproduction in my study exceed critique, by redefining what it means to be human from the perspective of those animalized by thegendered and sexual discourses and practices of biopolitics.
http://www.theoria.ca/theoria/?p=1179http://www.theoria.ca/theoria/?p=1179


22/49

2NC Root Cause Eurocentrism

Speciesism is the root cause of Eurocentrism seeing other cultures as theprimitive and exotic other closer to animals on the hierarchy of species was

used to justify imperial conquest and exporting European culture to thecolonies. Failure to begin with this starting point means their understanding ofEurocentrism is epistemologically flawed and reproduces the same mindset ofracist and colonialist conquest that they criticize only the alternativesinterrogation of what it means to be human can solve.Huggan & Tiffin 10 (Graham & Helen, Postcolonial Ecocriticism: Literature, Animals, Environment, published byRoutledge, Google Books, p. 5-8, njw)

For Plumwood, these claims extend both to environmental and animal actors, since what she calls our [collective] failureto situate dominant forms of human society ecologically [has been] matched by our failure tosituate non-humans ethically, as the plight of non- human species continues to worsen (2001: 2).Hegemonic centrism thus accounts not only for environmental racism , but also for those forms ofinstitutionalised speciesism that continue to be used to rationalise the exploitation of animal(and animalized human) others in the name of a human - and reason-centred culture that is atleast a couple of millennia old (2001: 8). As Plumwood argues, the western definition of humanity depended and still depends on the presence of the not -human: the uncivilized, the animal andanimalistic , European justification for invasion and colonisation proceeded from this basis,

understanding non-European lands and the people and animals that inhabited them as

spaces, unused, underused or empty (2003: 53). The very ideology of colonisation is thus one

where anthropocentrism and Eurocentrism are inseparable, with the anthropocentrism

underlying Eurocentrism being used to justify those forms of European colonialism that see

indigenous cultures as primitive, less rational, and closer to children, animals and nature (2003: 53). Within many culture and not just western ones anthropocentrism has long been naturlised. Theabsolute prioritisation of ones own species interests over those of the silenced majority isstill regarded as being only natural . Ironically, it is precisely through such appeals to nature thatother animals and the environment are often excluded from the privileged ranks of thehuman, rendering them available for exploitation. As Cary Wolfe, citing Jacques Derrida, puts it: [T]he

humanist concept of subjectivity is inseparable from the discourse and institution of a

speciesism which relies on the tacit acceptance that the full transcendence to the humanrequires the sacrifice of the animal and the animalistic, which in turn makes possible asymbolic economy in which we can engage in a non -criminal putting to death , as Derrida phrases it,not only of animals but of humans as well by marking them as anima l. (1998:39) Theeffectiveness of this discourse of species is that when applied to social others of whatever sort, it relies uponthe taking for granted of the institution of speciesism; that is , upon the ethical acceptability of the

systematic, institutionalised killing of non-human others (39). In other words, in assuming a

natural prioritization of humans and human interests over those of other species on earth, we are both

generating and repeating the racist ideologies of imperialism on a planetary scale . In workingtowards a genuinely post-imperial, environmentally based conception of community, then, a re-imagining and


23/49

reconfiguration of the human place in nature necessitates an interrogation of the category of

the human itself and of the ways in which the construction of ourselves against nature with

the hierarchisation of life forms that construction implies has been and remains complicit in colonialist and

racist exploitation from the time of imperial conquest to the present day . Postcolonial studies

has come to understand environmental issues not only as central to the projects of Europeanconquest and global domination, but also as inherent in the ideologies of imperialism andracism on which those projects historically and persistently depend . Not only were otherpeople often regarded as part of nature and thus treated as instrumentally as animals butalso they were forced or co-opted over time into western views of the environment, therebyrendering cultural and environmental restitution difficult if not impossible to achieve. Onceinvasion and settlement had been accomplished , or at least once administrative structures had been set up, theenvironmental impacts of western attitudes to human being-in-the-world were facilitated orreinforced by the deliberate (or accidental) transport of animals, plants and peoples throughout theEuropean empires, instigating wide-spread ecosystem change under conspicuously unequalpower regimes. 3 Despite the recent advances of eco/environmental criticism, English studies in general, and postcolo nialstudies more particularly, have yet to resituate the species boundary and environmental concernsat the centre of their enquiries ; yet the need to examine these interfaces between nature and

culture, animal and human, is urgent and never more pertinent than it is today . After all,postcolonialisms co ncerns with conquest, colonisation , racism and sexism, along with its investments intheories of indigeneity and diaspora and the relations between native and invader societies and cultures, are

also the central concerns of animal and environmental studies . Moreover, as the American environmentalhistorian Donald Worster acknowledges, it is in the myriad relationships between material practices andideas especially in cross-cultural contexts that day-to-day planetary life is lived and futures are governed:practices and ideas that are inseparable from issues of representation as will be made clear

throughout this book. In his historical studies The Columbian Exchange (1973) and Ecological Imperialism (1986), Alfred Crosbyconsiders the ways in which both materials and ideas were exchanged between Old World and New in a number of anything buteven contexts. In the colonies of occupation, these radical inequalities or exchanges seemed most evident or at least initially in

the military and political arenas, while in the settler colonies it was the results of environmentalimperialism that were often most immediately clear. Different conceptions of being-in-the-world had indeedlong been exchanged by individuals or groups under colonialist circumstances: eastern religions had intrigued Europeans for severalcenturies, while the oral cultures of the Pacific Islands and Africa had provoked interest and admiration in many westerners as well.

But in Australia, North America, New Zealand and South Africa, genuine curiosity about and respect forindigenous cultures, philosophies and religions was rare, and even the most well-intentionedof missionaries , settlers and administrators tended to conceive of themselves as conferring ( or

imposing ) the gifts of civilisation upon the benighted heathen with little or no interest in

receiving his or her philosophical gifts in return. Settlers arrived with crops, flocks and herds,

and cleared land, exterminating local ecosystems, while human, animal and plant specimenstaken to Europe from these new worlds were , by contrast, few and often inert in form .(Interestingly enough, no human, animal or plant, whether wild or domesticated, transported from the colonies to Europe was in a

position to wreak comparable havoc on European ecosystems.) Moreover, they did not arrive as part oftraditional agricultural or pastoral practices or with the authority of the normative; instead,they were isolated exotics: Indians paraded before royal courts; like turkeys and parrots incages were the innocent signifiers of an otherness that was *+exotic , that is, non-systematic,

carrying no meaning other than that imposed by the culture to which they were exhibited


24/49

(Wasserman 1984; 132). European imports to the newly settled colonies humans, animals, plants were regarded on the other hand as necessary and natural impositions on, or substitutesfor, the local bush or wilderness ; and even if these invading species were initially difficult toestablish or acclimatize , they soon prospered in lands where their control predators were absent. The genuinelynatural ways of indigenous ecosystems were irretrievably undone as wild lands were

cleared for farming or opened up to pastoralism.


25/49

2NC Turns Case

History flows neg everything that has been said to have good intentionsresults in destruction they are too narrow minded

Kochi, Queen's University School of Law lecturer, and Ordan, linguist, 08 (Tarikand Noam, Borderlands Volume 7 Number 3, 2008, "An Argument for the Global Suicide ofHumanity," p. 8)

When thinking about whether the human species is worth saving the na ve view sees thesegood and bad aspects as distinct. However, when thinking about human nature as a whole ,or even the operation of human reason as a characteristic of the Enlightenment andmodernity, it is not so easy to draw clear lines of separation . As suggested by Theodor Adorno and MaxHorkheimer (1997), within what they call the dialectic of enlightenment, it is sometimes the very things which wedraw upon to escape from evil, poverty and harm (reason, science, technology) which bringabout a situation which is infinitely more destructive (for example the atom bomb). Indeed, it

has often been precisely those actions motivated by a desire to do good that have createdprofound degrees of destruction and harm. One just has to think of all the genocides,massacres and wars within history justified by moral notions such as civilisation, progressand freedom , and carried out by numerous peoples acting with misguided, but genuineintentions . When considering whether humanity is worth saving, one cannot turn a blind eye to the violence of human history.This is not to discount the many positive aspect s of the human heritage such as art, medicine, the recognition of individual

autonomy and the development of forms of social organisation that promote social welfare. Rather, what we arequestioning is whether a holistic view of the human heritage considered in its relation to thenatural environment merits the continuation of the human species or not. Far too often thepositive aspects of the human heritage are viewed in an abstract way, cut off fromhumanitys destructive relation with the natural envir onment. Such an abstract or one-sidedpicture glorifies and reifies human life and is used as a tool that perpetually redeems the

otherwise evil acts of humanity .

Your change from the status quo only results in more forms of ____________and destruction of the environment by humanityKochi, Queen's University School of Law lecturer, and Ordan, linguist, 08 (Tarikand Noam, Borderlands Volume 7 Number 3, 2008, "An Argument for the Global Suicide ofHumanity," p. 3-4)One dominant presumption that underlies many modern scientific and political attitudes towards technology and creative human

action is that of speciesism, which can itself be called a human -centric view or attitude. The term speciesism , coined bypsychologist Richard D. Ryder and later elaborated into a comprehensive ethics by Peter Singer (1975), refers to the attitudeby which humans value their species above both non-human animals and plant life. Quitetypically humans conceive non-human animals and plant life as something which might simplybe used for their benefit . Indeed, this conception can be traced back to, among others, Augustine (1998, p.33). Whilemany modern, enlightened humans generally abhor racism, believe in the equality of allhumans, condemn slavery and find cannibalism and human sacrifice repugnant, many stillthink and act in ways that are profoundly speciesist . Most individuals may not even be conscious that theyhold such an attitude, or many would simply assume that their attitude falls within the natural order of things. Such anattitude thus resides deeply within modern human ethical customs and rationales and plays a profound role in theway in which humans interact with their environment . The possibility of the destruction of our habitable


26/49

environment on ea rth through global warming and Hawkings suggestion that we respond by colonising other planets forces us to

ask a serious question about how we value human life in relation to our environment. The use of the term colonisation is significant here as it draws to mind the recent history of the colonisation of much of the globe by white, European peoples. Such

actions were often justified by valuing European civilisation higher than civilisations of non-whitepeoples , especially that of indigenous peoples. For scholars such as Edward Said (1978), however, the practice ofcolonialism is intimately bound up with racism . That is, colonisation is often justified,

legitimated and driven by a view in which the right to possess territory and govern human lifeis grounded upon an assumption of racial superiority . If we were to colonise other planets, what form ofracism would underlie our actions? What higher value would we place upon human life, upon the human race, at the expense of other forms of life which would justify our taking over a new habitat and altering it to suit our prosperity and desired livingconditions?


27/49

2NC Alt Solvency

Only a complete rejection of all that is human can solve the impacts and ismorally justified

Kochi, Queen's University School of Law lecturer, and Ordan, linguist, 08 (Tarikand Noam, Borderlands Volume 7 Number 3, 2008, "An Argument for the Global Suicide ofHumanity," p. 16-17)

How might such a standpoint of dialectical, utopian anti-humanism reconfigure a notion of action which does not simply repeat inanother way the modern humanist infliction of violence, as exemplified by the plan of Hawking, or fall prey to institutional andsystemic complicity in speciesist violence? While this question goes beyond what it is possible to outline in this paper, we contendthat the thought experiment of global suicide helps to locate this question the question of modern action itself as residing at the

heart of the modern environmental problem. In a sense perhaps the only way to understand what is atstake in ethical action which responds to the natural environment is to come to terms withthe logical consequences of ethical action itself . The point operates then not as the end, but asthe starting point of a standpoint which attempts to reconfigure our notions of action, life-value, and harm . For some, guided by the pressure of moral conscience or by a practice of harm minimisation, the appropriateresponse to historical and contemporary environmental destruction is that of action guided by abstention. For example, one way ofreacting to mundane, everyday complicity is the attempt to abstain or opt-out of certain aspects of modern, industrial society: to noteat non-human animals, to invest ethically, to buy organic produce, to not use cars and buses, to live in an environmentallyconscious commune. Ranging from small personal decisions to the establishment of parallel economies (think of organic and fairtrade products as an attempt to set up a quasi-parallel economy), a typical modern form of action is that of a refusal to be complicitin human practices that are violent and destructive. Again, however, at a practical level, to what extent are such acts of non-

participation rendered banal by their complicity in other actions? In a grand register of violence and harm theindividual who abstains from eating non-human animals but still uses the bus or an airplane orelectricity has only opted out of some harm causing practices and remains fully complicit withothers. One response , however, which bypasses the problem of complicity and the banality ofaction is to take the non-participation solution to its most extreme level . In this instance, the onlyway to truly be non-complicit in the violence of the human heritage would be to opt-outaltogether . Here, then, the modern discourse of reflection, responsibility and action runs to itslogical conclusion the global suicide of humanity as a free- willed and final solution . While weare not interested in the di scussion of the method of the global suicide of humanity per se, one method that would be the least

violent is that of humans choosing to no longer reproduce. [10] The case at point here is that the global suicide ofhumanity would be a moral act; it would take humanity out of the equation of life on thisearth and remake the calculation for the benefit of everything non- human . While suicide in certainforms of religious thinking is normally condemned as something which is selfish and inflicts harm upon loved ones, the globalsuicide of humanity would be the highest act of altruism. That is, global suicide would involvethe taking of responsibility for the destructive actions of the human species. By eradicatingourselves we end the long process of inflicting harm upon other species and offer a human-free world. If there is a form of divine intelligence then surely the human act of global suicidewill be seen for what it is: a profound moral gesture aimed at redeeming humanity. Such an

act is an offer of sacrifice to pay for past wrongs that would usher in a new future. Throughthe death of our species we will give the gift of life to others .

The alt solves your out of round/mindset shift impactsKochi, Queen's University School of Law lecturer, and Ordan, linguist, 08 (Tarikand Noam, Borderlands Volume 7 Number 3, 2008, "An Argument for the Global Suicide ofHumanity," p. 17-18)


28/49

It should be noted nonetheless that our proposal for the global suicide of humanity is based upon the notion that such aradical action needs to be voluntary and not forced. In this sense, and given the likelihood of such an action not being agreed upon,

it operates as a thought experiment which may help humans to radically rethink what it meansto participate in modern, moral life within the natural world . In other words, whether or not theact of global suicide takes place might well be irrelevant. What is more important is the formof critical reflection that an individual needs to go through before coming to the conclusionthat the global suicide of humanity is an action that would be worthwhile . The point then of athought experiment that considers the argument for the global suicide of humanity is theattempt to outline an anti-humanist, or non-human-centric ethics. Such an ethics attempts totake into account both sides of the human heritage: the capacity to carry out violence andinflict harm and the capacity to use moral reflection and creative social organisation tominimise violence and harm . Through the idea of global suicide such an ethics re- introduces a central question to theheart of moral reflection: To what extent is the value of the continuation of human life worth the total harm inflicted upon the life ofall others? Regardless of whether an individual finds the idea of global suicide abhorrent or ridiculous, this question remains validand relevant and will not go away, no matter how hard we try to forget, suppress or repress it. Finally, it is important to note thatsuch a standpoint need not fall into a version of green or eco-fascism that considers other forms of life more important than thelives of humans. Such a position merely replicates in reverse the speciesism of modern humanist thought. Any choice between the

eco-fascist and the humanist, colonial-speciesist is thus a forced choice and is, in reality, a non-choice that should be rejected. Thepoint of proposing the idea of the global suicide of humanity is rather to help identify the wayin which we differentially value different forms of life and guide our moral actions by rigidlyadhered to standards of life-value. Hence the idea of global suicide, through its radicalism,challenges an ideological or culturally dominant idea of life-value . Further, through confrontinghumanist ethics with its own violence against the non-human, the idea of global suicide opensup a space for dialectical reflection in which the utopian ideals of both modern humanist andanti-humanist ethics may be comprehended in relation to each other . One possibility of this conflict isthe production of a differing standpoint from which to understand the subject and the scope of moral action.

These forms of ethics determine the way we treat the environmentSivil, lecturer in Environmental Philosophy, University of Durban Westville, 01(Richard R, "Why we Need a New Ethic for the Environment", Protest And Engagement:Philosophy after Apartheid, Ed. Patrick Giddy, http://www.crvp.org/book/Series02/II-7/chapter_vii.htm)

It is clear that humanity has the capacity to transform and degrade theenvironment Given the consequences inherent in having such capacities, "theneed for a coherent, comprehensive, rationally persuasive environmental ethic isimperative" (Pierce & Van De Veer 1995: 2). The purpose of an environmental ethic wouldbe to account for the moral relations that exist between humans and theenvironment, and to provide a rational basis from which to decide how we oughtand ought not to treat the environment. The environment was defined as theworld in which we are enveloped and immersed, constituted by both animate andinanimate objects This includes both individual living creatures, such as plantsand animals, as well as non-living, non-individual entities, such as rivers andoceans, forests and velds, essentially, the whole planet Earth This constitutes avast and all-inclusive sphere, and, for purposes of clarity, shall be referred to asthe "greater environment". In order to account for the moral relations that exist between humans andthe greater environment, an environmental ethic should have a significantly wide range of focus.


29/49

2NC Link Ext.

Their accusations of the terror list as being unethical and exclusionary beg thequestion of ethics for and exclusionary against whom

They view terror as constructing violence they ignore the ongoing violenceagainst the non-human

Additionally, their starting point is fundamentally flawed their action throughthe state only perpetuates flawed knowledge production the plan is acriticism of exclusionary politics through the State Sponsor List of Terror but theplan expands and simply includes more humans into the sphere maintaining ananthropocentric worldview

Humans are viewed as the end all be all and their conception as the end ofhumanity as the end of the world only serves to strengthen the discursiveconstruct of the human-non-human dichotomies

The aff is an attempt to define terror in the human discursive sphere whilecomplacently ignoring the ongoing violence against the non-human

Their action only serves to perpetuate the man/nature dichotomy theexclusionary frame through which they justify what life forms are worthy ofbeing saved


30/49

2NC Bare Life DA

Their reasons for why we should prioritize survival proves that they only want aspecific aspect of humanity to survive this creates a distinction between good

life and bare lifeKochi, Queen's University School of Law lecturer, and Ordan, linguist, 08 (Tarikand Noam, Borderlands Volume 7 Number 3, 2008, "An Argument for the Global Suicide ofHumanity," p. 7-8)When many , like Hawing, typically think of the notion of the survival of the human race, it is perhapsthis cultural-cognitive aspect of homo sapiens, made possible and produced by human self-consciousness, which they are thinking of. If one is to make the normative argument that thehuman race should survive, then one needs to argue it is these cultural-cognitive aspects ofhumanity, and not merely a portion of our genes, that is worth saving. However, it remains anopen question as to what cultural-cognitive aspect of humanity would survive in the futurewhen placed under radical environmental and evolutionary pressures . We can consider that perhaps

the fish people , having the capacity for self-awareness, would consider themselves as the continuation ornext step of humanity. Yet, who is to say that a leap in the process of evolution would notprompt a change in self awareness, a different form of abstract reasoning about the species, adifferent self-narrative, in which case the descendents of humans would look upon theirbiological and genetic ancestors in a similar manner to the way humans look upon the apestoday . Conceivably the fish people might even forget or suppress their evolutionary human heritage. While such a future cannotbe predicted, it also cannot be controlled from our graves. In something of a sense similar to the point made by Giorgio Agamben

(1998), revising ideas found within the writings of Michel Foucault and Aristotle, the question of survival can bethought to involve a distinction between the good life and bare life. In this instance,arguments in favour of human survival rest upon a certain belief in a distinctly human goodlife, as opposed to bare biological life, the life of the gene pool. It is thus such a good life, or atleast a form of life considered to be of value, that is held up by a particular species to beworth saving . When considering the hypothetical example of the fish people, what cultural- cognitive aspect of humanitys goodlife would survive?

That turns caseFoucault 72 (Michael, Professor of the History of Systems of Thought College De France, TheFoucault Reader, pg. 258) LDSince the classical age, the West has undergone a very profound transformation of thesemechanisms of power . "Deduction" has tended to be no longer the major form of power but merely one element amongothers, working to incite, reinforce, control, monitor, optimize, and organize the forces under it:a power bent on generating forces, making them grow, and ordering them, rather than one

dedicated to impeding them, making them submit, or destroying them . There has been a parallel shiftin the right of death, or at least a tendency to align itself with the exigencies of a life-administering power and to define itselfaccordingly. This death that was based on the right of the sovereign is now manifested as simply the reverse of the right , of the

social body to ensure, maintain, or develop its life . Yet wars were never as bloody as they have been sincethe nineteenth century, and all things being equal, never before did regimes visit suchholocausts on their own populations . But this formidable power of death-and this is perhapswhat accounts for part of its force and the cynicism with which it has greatly expanded itslimits- now presents itself a s the counterpart of a power that exerts a positive influence onlife, that endeavors to administer, optimize, and multiply it, subjecting to precise controls and


31/49

comprehensive regulations . Wars are no longer waged in the name of a sovereign who mustbe de fended; they are waged on behalf of the existence of everyone ; entire populations are

mobilized for the purpose of wholesale slaughter in the name of life necessity: massacres havebecome vital . It is as managers of life and survival, of bodies and the race, that so manyregimes have been able to wage so many wars, causing so many men to be killed . And through aturn that closes the circle, as the technology of wars has caused them to tend increasingly toward all-out destruction, the decisionthat initiates them and the one that terminates the are in fact increasingly informed by the naked question of survival. Theatomic situation is now

Anthro K vs. CTS

Documents

Transcript of Anthro K vs. CTS