• FYSM 1506 Topics in the Study of Societies: “Power and Violence” [pdf]–this course will focus, in the semester, on social and political theories of violence and its relation to society and, in the second semester, on a variety of “substantive” topics, drawing upon movies, fiction, and television.
• LAWS 3005 Law and Regulation [pdf]–this year I am focusing upon liberalism and neo-liberalism.
• LAWS 3908 Approaches in Legal Studies II [pdf]–the idea of this course is that the relation between “theoretical perspectives” and “the law” is to be explored through a “substantive topic.” I will be using animal law as my “substantive topic.”

]]> http://www.theoria.ca/theoria/archives/2010/08/ospca-vs-ths-yet-again.html/feed 1 http://www.theoria.ca/theoria/archives/2010/08/an-eleventh-thesis-on-true-blood.html http://www.theoria.ca/theoria/archives/2010/08/an-eleventh-thesis-on-true-blood.html#comments Thu, 12 Aug 2010 18:09:27 +0000 Craig http://www.theoria.ca/theoria/?p=1020 The hardest aspect of the show to understand is the role of blood, both real and synthetic. The previous two episodes point to its powers: it is already known that vampire blood has effects on humans and supernaturals who consume it, but the powers of supernatural blood on vampires has not been explored. It is clear that were- blood does not have any additional affect on vampires and it is unknown if were- blood would have any affect on humans or other supernaturals. It seems unlikely that it would given Sookie’s “dream” involving the fairies whereby fairy blood has some intrinsic connection to “the light” while vampire blood has some intrinsic connection to “the dark.” In a sense, the only “light” that a vampire can experience, without dying, is the blood of a fairy. Thus, vampire blood has significant effects on all other beings and fairy blood has significant effects, at least, on vampires (if not other beings as well).

(11) Food, especially in its most base form as “pure life” in blood, has physical/bodily and mental effects on those who consume it; food is never inactive, but the principle that generates the possibility of action. Food is pure potentiality.

Also: if my Eighth Thesis is correct, the “foodie/organic/happy meat” position embodied by Talbot has now been ruled out.

2. The vampires of “True Blood” pose the question of consumption and are thus actually about blood: who should eat whom, when and under what conditions;

3. These questions could only be posed with the advent of ‘true blood,’ the synthetic blood, which is to human blood as tofu is to animal flesh;

4. Accordingly, “True Blood” is not about vampires, but about what the viewers of “True Blood” choose (should they take the show seriously) to eat;

5. As such, “True Blood” is most certainly not an “allegory for gay rights”;

6. It is only with the intervention of ‘true blood’ that vampires can become fully moral beings and thus responsible for their consumption;

7. Being moral means eating the right sort of food at the appropriate time;

8. The major characters, human and supernatural, of “True Blood” dramatize the possibilities of consumption:

• Bill’s “mainstreaming” is, in effect, a form of veganism;
• Russell’s “speciesism” is, in effect, the inverse of present-day “carnism” and it is only through Russell’s partner, Talbot, that “carnism” enters the realm of cuisine;
• Sophie-Anne’s “Michael Pollanism” is, in effect, about the absolute moral vacuousness of “paying more for better meat”; Jessica presents an interesting counter-point to this insofar as she tends to “glam” her victims, thus ensuring that they do not experience pain during consumption; the significance of both characters being female remains indeterminate;
• Eric  is the average American consumer: he neither “eats too much” nor does he “eat too little” and he gives little thought to the blood he consumes; he is as prone to eat “fast food” as he is to eat higher quality meals;
• Maryanne represents the limit-point of consumption: consuming humans is not about their blood, but about their hearts, but this at the same time reveals how the consumption of flesh, despite species, is always a form of cannibalism;

9. Food, regardless of what it is, has physiological and moral effects upon the consumer (e.g., Bill’s greater strength since returning to human blood);

10. The show cannot state its own moral position until one of the above listed characters kills another (with the exception of Eric killing Russell, because such a killing is a matter of justice for Eric and not a matter of morality)

The problem with Newman’s documentary–and most “exposes” we find in the newspapers and on TV–is that they begin with the correct premise: an animal can suffer and an animal has an interest in not suffering. After this Newman’s documentary becomes hopelessly confused. He is correct to point out that animals are treated as chattel under Canadian law and that this entails that an animal can be reasonably and legally treated as though it were no different from a table or an iPod. (However, the paragons of animal welfare that Newman points to–Switzerland, the Netherlands and Italy–also treat animals as property.) This, Newman seems to believe, is what enables and justifies confinement in gestation crates, battery cages, 52 hour legal transport times, and puppy mills. However, Newman then makes two incongruent moves from this point. First, he claims that killing an animal is not a harm to that animal (thus we need not concern ourselves with slaughterhouses) and therefore humans can consume flesh and other animal products without a guilty conscience. Second, animals should not be treated as though they are property, but with “love.” In effect, so long as we “love” the animals we consume, it is perfectly reasonable to “consume” those animals. However, to be a sentient being and not to be property (i.e., not to be chattel no different than  a slave or a teacup) excludes being subject to the whims of a more powerful being (i.e., not to be consumed for the mere pleasure of a human). Put in other terms, one cannot coherently “love” an animal and produce that animal for consumption. The “organic” and “humane” farmer treats their animals as property in the same way as the industrial “farmer,” but markets their products through different terms: “humane,” “happy,” “loved.”

Rather than destroying industries that exploit animals for trivial purposes, Newman proposes that “activists” (one such “activist” is a “poultry scientist”) work with governments and corporations to reform the more egregious practices and perfect the less offensive ones. Consumers should press their butchers to supply “heritage breeds” and “happy meat” produced by farmers who “love” their animals. The true solution to the problem–adopt a vegan diet as a moral stance–is immediately excluded as “unrealistic” and “too difficult” by the “activist” at the centre of the documentary. (She is involved with Canadians for Ethical Treatment of Farm Animals [CETFA], which as its name suggests, is concerned only with “treatment” and not “use”–in other words, their goal is to make the exploitation of animals more efficient.) This is silly. After all, vegans live by one simple rule: avoid insofar as it is possible consuming animal products. Meat eaters must constantly make decisions: is this a meat that I can eat? (Why can I eat cow but not dog? Why can I eat pig but not human? Why can I eat goat but not snake?) Is this a fluid I can drink? (Why can I drink cow and goat milk, but not donkey or cat?) Meat eaters who will only consume ostensibly “happy meat” are even further hampered: Given that labels like “free range” and “organic” are largely meaningless, how can I know that these chickens are happy? Given that this animal was slaughtered, how can I know that it went to its death happily? The life of a meat eater is infinitely more difficult and complex than that of a vegan. The only distinction is that meat eating is normalized while abstaining from animal products is not.

As a result, rather than an interesting program, what was aired was “Michael Pollan for Dummies,” with the standard phrases: “humane treatment,” “happy meat,” “pay more, eat less,” “reputable breeder” and the like.

(More congratulatory discussion can be found here, here, and here.)

2009, 2008, 2007

“It is the opinion of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association that police conduct during the G20 Summit was, at times, disproportionate, arbitrary and excessive. In our view, despite instances of commendable and professional conduct, the policing and security efforts, especially after 5PM on June 26 and June 27, failed to demonstrate commitment to Canada’s constitutional values.” Canadian Civil Liberties Association Preliminary G20 Report

“I know that some folks feel that their rights have been abridged, and there are avenues available to them and I would encourage them to pursue any remedies that are available to them through those avenues.” Dalton McGuinty, Premier of Ontario

• Passing secret regulations in Cabinet designating (not published in The Ontario Gazette until after the G8/G20 meetings had ended)–or not!–a five meter perimeter around the gathering site as a “public work,” effectively suspending civil and political rights (e.g., in Canada, outside of public works, you are not required to identity yourself to police if they ask you to nor are you required to submit to searches–within public works, you are required to identity yourself and submit to searches; public works are ordinarily police stations, government offices, court houses, prisons, and the like); the Canadian Civil Liberties Association is apparently working on a lawsuit, however this would only address the particular handling of the regulation and not the regulation as such;
• Not only were huge numbers of peaceful protesters arrested without knowing the charges against them, many of the “detainees” were completely uninvolved in protesting at all–bar patrons, tourists, the homeless, spectators, people passing by, and even a LARPer; a Globe & Mail journalist reports her story here; and reports submitted to the Canadian Civil Liberties Association;
• The “black bloc” segment of the protest was allowed to riot unhampered by police (despite the police blocking off cross-cutting streets with human fences) and fortuitously stumbled upon abandoned (and stripped) police cars, which were then destroyed (but the video and photographs, frankly, look no different than a post-championship sports part in North America or after any hockey game in Montreal); video footage by journalist Joe Wenkoff;
• After plainclothes police stormed a protest outside the temporary detention centre (formerly Eastern Avenue movie studios) in a series of targeted arrests, a woman received a “muzzle blast” at short range for no apparent reason–of course, we shouldn’t fall into the error of believing this was exceptional violence: coercion and brutality are normal modes of being for the police;
• It seems highly probable that the police acted as “agents provocateur” in the “black bloc” segment given that it is highly improbable that participants in the “black block” would wear new Nike clothing (I am reminded of the scene in “The Wire” when Sydnor dresses up as a junkie and Bubbles makes fun of him for looking like a cop trying to look like a junkie); another video;
• Among the “weapons” seized by police over the course of the weekend, was a copy of Upping the Anti journal (clear confirmation of Althusser’s thesis: “Philosophy is class warfare in thought”) and a fantasy knight’s costume and foam weapons for use at a live action role playing game:

Note "Upping the Anti" journal at middle left

• Lastly, a video of a citizen refusing to submit to a search, captured by (what appears to be) a Toronto-based animal rights activist–the citizen is told that “we don’t live in Canada anymore.”

Some points to remember: police work for the society of capital and not for society as such (this is easily confirmed in any history of police), however, police always justifies their violence in the name of society as such. One of the originary functions of the state, created when power is separated from the control of the collective, is to concentrate the means of violence via the transformation of force into violence: the weak can use force, but they cannot use violence. Only the state can use or authorize violence. The significant victory of the police since Seattle has been shifting the terrain of the debate: rather than having capital under discussion, the issue of police violence is under discussion. Further, popular anger has been successfully directed at the police rather than at their masters.

(Later I’ll recount my story about being interrogated by military police on Friday evening for the crime of consuming a coffee and a snack in my car in a parking lot at the university where I work.)

There were some tenditious moments. For instance, Carol J. Adams was criticize more than once for being “transphobic.” Often this “criticism” was appended to a paper without any clear connection to the topic at hand or with any effort to demonstrate that she is, in fact, “transphobic” or how this relates to her work. I found these criticisms quite surprising and weak. (I assume they ultimately derive from this post at The Vegan Ideal and similarly weak criticisms of her teacher, Mary Daly.) After all, when I suggested that we must be careful with our theoretical concepts, that it is not merely a matter of substituting “humans and animals” for “men” in the texts we read, I was told–and this in-itself was tenditious–that we “just can’t throw out a theoretical tradition because the thinker is a humanist” (a claim I did not, in fact, make), it is perfectly acceptable to criticize and condemn a feminist and her work on a wishy-washy charge of being “transphobic”! This is in spite of the fact that Steven Best, the patron saint of the politically correct activists, routinely engages in highly gendered attacks on his enemies, the “effete and privileged academics.” Similarly, there are only so many exegeses (regardless of how good they may be) one can do of, say, Jacques Derrida’s The Animal That Therefore I Am!

Rumour has it that this event will be followed by another organized around a visit to Queen’s by J.M. Coetzee in the coming year.

(While I was away, Mica puked in the hallway at the bottom of the stairs for no discernable reason, Gordon pooped in front of the TV after having been outside for ten minutes, and one of our classy neighbours attacked our front door with a bottle–basically, it was a standard weekend.)