Comments on: Keeping the Species Pure

By: Elaine Vigneault

Elaine Vigneault — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 06:27:49 +0000

Speaking of chimeras, have you seen this?
http://www.nerve.com/CS/blogs/scanner/archive/2008/09/05/sarah-quot-pitbull-with-lipstick-quot-palin-photoshop-contest.aspx
OMG, I feel so guilty for laughing at that.

By: Royce Drake

Royce Drake — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 15:28:15 +0000

Breeze–
Those sort of things were definitely on my mind when I wrote this– because of the way this special purity is talked about really reflects the ideas of racial purity was/is talked about.

By: breezeharper

breezeharper — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 17:49:50 +0000

This topic reminds me of how fearful and ignorant people are when it comes to moving past rigid binaries of who is considered a sentient being.

And though it’s not exactly the “same” thing, it reminds me of when one of my colleagues at work found out that my husband to be was a white man. This woman of African descent said, “Aren’t you worried about what your children will look like?” Amazing that most people I meet are so concerned with “looks” and “proper gender, sexual, religious, racial, etc conformity” of a newborn human baby. Rarely do I find people who simply desire that the spirit entering the body of a newborn will simply “be” who they want to be, without having to “look” or perform a certain way that reinforced the “us” vs “them” binary of “race”, “gender”, “sexual orientation”, etc.

She was also weirded out that my children would not only be “too light”, but they’d be vegan and that they’d be “confused” of their identity because of being “mixed” (which I’m not really comfortable with as a term, as all of us are a “mixture” of our parent’s genes) and not eating animal products.

Okay, I think I’m babbling off topic at this point….

By: Royce Drake

Royce Drake — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 04:03:40 +0000

I like how everyone keeps calling this Georgia critter a Bigfoot. It’s obviously a fake because any cryptid enthusiast knows Bigfoot isn’t found in the South, we have the Skunk Ape down there.

By: joshivore

joshivore — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 03:47:48 +0000

re the bigfoot thing, just making a half joke. some friends of mine in georgia were telling me some dude claims to have the remains of bigfoot and that there are more out there. it made me think about what we would do if we captured ape like beings who were also like humans. it would raise ethical questions like the ones we’re talking about. but i was trying to mostly just make a little joke.

By: Alex

Alex — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 02:30:42 +0000

I’m not talking about bigfoot, but Dawkins may be

I think “bigfoot” may make a caricature of the legitimacy of the point being made. Perhaps it would be better understood by considering future evolution and how this may affect the results of our moral reasoning. Dawkins would argued, I believe, that this hypothetical raises questions about the human-nonhuman spectrum (e.g., Is it constructed or “real”?) and what may be justified by appealing to it. (Clearly it’s constructed given Darwin’s insight into the quantitative – not qualitative – nature of this difference.)

By: joshivore

joshivore — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 23:24:57 +0000

we’re talking about bigfoot aren’t we?

By: Alex

Alex — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 18:51:00 +0000

Richard Dawkins successfully uses a very similar argument to challenge the human/nonhuman dichotomy myth. He mentions the very plausible possibility that there exists, has existed, or will exist a “middle-species” between the “lower” great apes and us. He essentially asks: When this species (or its remains, bones, etc.) is found, where will it fall on our moral spectrum? How will the ardent speciesist respond to an intrusion into our alleged natural, evolutionary supremacy?

By: Elaine Vigneault

Elaine Vigneault — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 21:50:53 +0000

This is soooo interesting! Thanks for sharing.

I completely agree with you when you said “People really seem to hate the idea of a spectrum.” Seems like a lot of people really like a bright line difference: us versus them. A lot of people are uncomfortable when the lines are blurred, be they gender, race, species…

By: Royce Drake

Royce Drake — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 20:22:46 +0000

That image used to haunt me when I first stumbled on it years ago, its a sculpture by Patricia Paccinini. Look her up, she has some cool, and intense stuff.

Yeah the similarities of speciesism and racism become greater as we move towards a future where the lines between species becomes more and more blurred, and less and less science fictiony. (And just imagine throwing robots and cyborgs in the mix…craziness).