Saturday, April 11, 2009

Companion Species

In its incessant questioning of human exceptionalism, Haraway's 2008 book strikes me as an appropriate place to finish the reading portion of the class and turn, in earnest, to the writing portion. While I'd like to have you read the whole thing--or at least the entire handout distributed in class--focus your energy on pages 3-42 (skipping 27-30), and 77-82 (for a continuation of her discussion of Derrida from chapter 1).

You know the routine.

8 comments:

  1. At first glance Haraway was beginning to strike me as an affectatious blabber-mouth. But by the end of the reading she had warmed up to me and I now view her excerpt as a very valuable discourse on human-animal related consciousness. This is not to say that I agree with her every viewpoint, but her views seem to be the most comprehensive concerning the topics discussed in class.

    The beauty of Haraway's piece is that, in my opinion, it's the most well-rounded and educated view we've encountered this term, so it has the effect of leaving me fulfilled in respect to knowledge of animal consciousness. But the most impacting effect Haraway's piece had on me was: It so effectively illuminated what we, humans, do Not know, rather than what we do know.

    The part most interesting to me was page 11 when she began to talk about human exceptionalism. Human exceptionalism, in the sense that Haraway uses the term, is something that I, also, regard with apprehension. But I think that Haraway's attempt at drawing a picture of humans as indifferentiable from other Earth animals is a bit overcompensatory (overcompensating as a statement counteractive towards human exceptionalism). But I think that the way Haraway and I use the term 'human exceptionalism' differs. It's my opinion that Haraway uses the term as an ideological premise. I agree that human exceptionalism as an ideology is a bit over-valued. But if I'm correct in what I think Haraway is saying, that humans are no different than animals we're just at the top of the ladder, then I feel this is an oversimplification.

    But what are 'alter-globilisation' and 'autre-mondialisation'? They have a numerical citation but I can't find the full citation anywhere in the reading.

    I have a few other complaints about Haraway, such as how she'll throw educated sounding premises out very quickly and with little evidence, apparently expecting the reader to grant her their full support willy nilly (i.e. - thinking and seeing appear to be clones because of root word description similarities, pg. 17). In this way she reminds me of Nietzsche.

    But all that aside, I enjoyed the reading, I think it will yield an interesting discussion on Wednesday.

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  2. April 14, 2009
    John S. Sonin
    Eng. 418—Blog 12
    Maier—Krein
    What’s the point? I thought I had a pretty good “circum-locuting” sickness but now I’m beginning to wonder if trying to talk of the natural with self-contrived purpose isn’t the essential infection. When Haraway discusses her turtling as the metaphor for symbiotic becoming, and attempts to discount what Margulius and Sagan say about cogeneration of organic complexity by “mystifying” Gilbert’s sense of the autopoietic system, she also, like much religious ideological argument, noun-ifies her verbs or verb-ifies her nouns. According to Haraway’s interpretation of what M&S were trying to say about symbiotic evolution, she favors that D&G’s attitude is closer suggesting that co-generation was happening in a tandem style that “turtles all the way down” (32). Haraway says that D&G discredit Gilbert’s rendition of autopoesis for “its emphasis on self-building and self-maintaining systems” (32). Their work, she says, “did NOT build on complex self-referential units of differentiation or Gaian systems, cybernetic or otherwise, but built on a different kind of ‘turtles all the way down,’ figuring relentless otherness knotted into never fully bounded or fully self-referential entities” (32). That last phrase does nothing more than make senseless an otherwise natural sense.
    Scabs develop from the edge inward. Even crystallizing (her preferred metaphor) begins with contact to something Other, why should symbiosis of one unit with another begin apart?
    We may never have been individuals but to begin our “pursuit of perfection” from the molecular soup, our aspiring molecule reorganized itself first, found others nearby had extra material that we could use with detraction from that Other and here is where symbiotic evolution began.
    Then again, maybe I’m not following her train of thought too clearly because I do like haraway’s preference for the “cooking” metaphor as a means of “trucking” the means to symbiotic information exchange.

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  3. Jack

    “If one loves organic nature, to express a love of technology makes one suspect”

    I chose that line from Haraway’s reading assignment as it is one of the few that were written in a way that I could connect with and that I agreed with. Her writing style is one that leaves me searching, not grasping, for what she is building up to. Her intentions seem to be similar to a chess player’s – to be out several steps in front of the reader with her conversation – unfortunately for me that style (as in chess too) make me the opponent as well. I recalled the scene from “A River Run’s Through It” when Norman’s father was teaching him how to write ‘properly’, and continued to return his paper with the comment of “Good, now once again – half as long”.

    Haraway’s argument against Derrida’s selection of ‘shame’ vs. ‘curiosity’ made me appreciate his choice that much more. Derrida delivered his argument in the form of a speech. We had discussed in class how that made reading his material more difficult, however with that delivery in mind, it is easy to understand how the idea of ‘shame’ would better capture the audiences attention than a discussion of ‘the cat was curious’. It becomes both a humorous and insightful introduction that plays well into the direction he takes the discussion.

    On pg 22, Haraway obviously feels it was unfortunate that Derrida could do no more than to take the discussion only to the level of Bentham’s question of whether or not animals ‘suffer’. Once again I found myself disagreeing with her. That was a great direction to take the discussion. What a powerful and compelling argument Bentham makes, a point not lost on Derrida. If something is complex enough to heighten your own self awareness to the point of being ashamed, how could it not be complex enough to ‘suffer’. Derrida certainly understood that ‘suffering’ was a much more powerful argument for the adoption of animal rights than whether or not an animal is ‘curious’, as Haraway unfortunately suggests.

    Regardless, I do agree with Haraway’s idea that organic nature and technology do not share a peaceful coexistence in the minds of many. As technology continues to make our lives easier and more comfortable, the discontinuity between the two will certainly grow unless an issue is raised that is too difficult to ignore. Haraway’s use of animals perhaps being ‘curious’ doesn’t seem to make them any less tasty. Knowing that they suffered greatly to give you the meal you are about to eat, as Bentham and Derrida suggest, might make a few people put their knives and forks down.

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  4. Haraway's Questions:

    "Whom and what do I touch when I tough my dog? How is "becoming with" a practice of becoming wordly?"
    Haraway opens with an exploration of canines in order to answer these questions and a question of herself, "Who and what am I/ are we?" By exploring these fundamental questions, she weaves in and out of the human and global relationship to canines as well as the human relationship to the world and ourselves.
    When Haraway opens with Jim's Dog, she makes the point that we can classify the things that surround us, but what really makes a dog a dog, or a person a person, or even a tree stump a tree stump. Haraway discusses the role of technology in depth as she names this the fourth wound to the "fantasy of human exceptionalism." As the definition of what it means to be human has expanded with the expansion and development of technology and globalization, our definitions of ourselves and our canine companions have experienced similar evolution. In science and technology, humans have adapted more ways to classify canines than possible before, to look at species of animals as not possible before, and defining animals and our relationship with animals and the animal world.
    Haraway seeks to examine the guiding questions she opens with in order to examine the bigger question, what should human roles towards animals be? Seeming to say that we are all products of life, biology, techonology, globalization, genes, and socialization that all crosses over each and determines that many inter species relationships exist, our role towards animals depends on taking into account all these classifications and functions.


    --
    Aimon Indoung

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  5. Keith UnderkofflerApril 15, 2009 at 4:20 PM

    I’ll frame my blog post as a reaction to Jacks. First of all, I'd like to point out that the quotation that he used as an epigraph is something that Haraway disagrees with. She thinks that it reinforces the notion of a Great Divide and is a dangerous position to take if we hope to "become with" animals.

    The more important point, though, is this notion of style. As a big Thomas Pynchon and James Joyce fan, I find myself constantly defending unconventional and often confusing styles of writing... and here I'll do it again.

    Coetzee’s portrayal of Elizabeth Costello made me start considering the philosophical style of arguing. Elizabeth, who finds herself unable or unwilling to debate on philosophical terms, represents a different way of thinking. She is more interested in the way the animal moves and the way that we interact with the animal than she is in whether or not animals can or cannot talk, for example. These are things that don’t seem to fit the philosophical model, and thus, she is unable to articulate her beliefs in a way that the wife (who’s name I forget, but can be taken as a representative of the average philosopher or, more specifically, as I think she is intended, as Daniel Dennett) can respect.

    Sharing similar beliefs to Elizabeth (though a little less bent on making controversial comparisons), I believe that Haraway uses a style that stretches that norm in order to get her point across. I believe that it is the same sort of thing that Coetzee is trying to do by telling a story and Derrida is attempting to do by being so freaking confusing.

    For me to take this stance, I need to make a couple considerations. I disagree with Kevin’s statement that Elizabeth Costello comes out of the philosophical tradition of dialogue. To be sure, Coetzee does something similar to what Plato would do by having different characters argue along different philosophical lines. However, I believe that Coetzee takes this a step further. Having read not near as much Plato as Kevin, I could be wrong, but it seems to me that he does not consider feelings and emotions the same way that Coetzee does. Coetzee tells us the wife’s hatred of Elizabeth and where it comes from, her son’s complicated feelings about his mother coming to visit, and Elizabeth’s struggles with death. These are emotions that add a dynamic to Cotzee’s story. He doesn’t give us a clear proposal, but documents different positions and different psyches that are incompatible with each other to the extent that it is impossible for them to even debate in the philosophical tradition.

    Furthermore, and this point is easier to make, I disagree with Jack about Derrida being difficult to understand because he was giving a speech and it didn’t translate well into text. Derrida was deliberately confusing all the time. It’s a prerequisite of sorts for his idea of deconstruction. Derrida was all about stretching the norms of how we consider issues and wrote in a very particular style in order to do so.

    I believe that Haraway is doing the same thing. In fact, she continually pays homage to Derrida even though she disagrees with what he says. I think that she sees Derrida as opening doors for her, because by comparison, Haraway is easy to read. She follows his tradition of challenging our primary assumptions to bring supposed opposites together, but must refute him because of a different ideological mind set.

    When I started reading Haraway, I thought that she had an extremely pronounced case of synesthesia. She says things like “touching this heritage” and “I will taste my key words for their flavors,” which don’t seem to make any sense. How can you touch an immaterial thing? the philosopher might ask. How can you taste your words?

    Philosophy rests on clear definitions and solid foundations. Haraway denies us this. She introduces a whole new vocabulary, redefining and introducing terms and phrases like “other globalization,” “companion species,” “becoming with,” “touch,” “in the mud,” without bothering to stop and tell us exactly what she means. So, in one sense, I agree with Jack. She is trying to lead us to her conclusions. But I contend that every author knows what they are trying to say before the reader, Haraway is just making her point in a different way. Her argument rests on senses and inclinations, and is something that is tough to get to by moving from certainty to certainty. She wants us to have a sense of what she is talking about, but needing further explanation to all the way understand, until we are so certain about what she is talking about that the terms she uses are completely redefined for us, at least in terms of her argument.

    Frankly, I think that this sort of style is needed alongside the more traditional texts that we read in order for us to fully grasp the issue without staying penned into a single mind set. In order to change the way we think about these issues, it is sometimes necessary to change the way we write about them.

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  6. After reading the Haraway excerpt, I looked up ‘human exceptionalism’ and found a book review by Val Plumwood (http://www.australianhumanitiesreview.org/archive/Issue-August-2007/EcoHumanities/Plumwood.html). It addresses a lot of the same issues we’ve been reading about and discussing in class. Plumwood is reviewing The Philosopher’s Dog by Raimond Gaita. Gaita writes that he cannot respond to the killing of animals in the same way he would respond to mass murder. Elizabeth Costello makes this comparison frequently in The Lives of Animals. The majority of people would likely sympathize with Gaita in this instance. Even reading about the Holocaust elicits in most people a much stronger response than knowing about currently used practices in slaughterhouses does. Plumwood writes that the two might be incomparable in the response elicited in part because of context. Plumwood writes that “Gaita is comparing the most defensible kinds of reasons for killing nonhuman animals with the least defensible kinds of reasons for killing humans. This is not at all a fair test of moral equivalence.” (Gaita uses this as one of his supports for his argument which Plumwood summarizes as “mind discontinuity licenses moral discontinuity”). Returning to the Coetzee reading very briefly, it’s certainly the sort of comparison likely to alienate an audience (as it did with the professor who didn’t attend the dinner in Costello’s honor and instead left her a terse note) rather than appeal to it. Haraway also discusses a more likeable-sounding character from Coetzee’s book Disgrace. Though we already discussed The Lives of Animals in class, it’s interesting to consider the lack of endearing or likeable qualities in the main characters in The Lives of Animals. The old, confused Costello can be pitied but at the same time, her unwillingness to engage with or respond to genuine criticisms is frustrating and her positions themselves are often not thoroughly defended. The frustrated wife, who was unable to get a teaching position at the university, is cruel at times, eager to engage in argument. The battling wife and mother-in-law are engaged in a simultaneous but different disagreement. The wife does not want the mother-in-law’s visit to disrupt the way she raises her children and wants to control her own household. Though we already asked this question: why does Coetzee have so many dislikable characters with unconvincing arguments? Furthermore, why does he, as one of the responses in the book asked, illuminate these conflicts by telling a tired, old story about the power struggles between a housewife and her mother-in-law with the mostly passive husband narrating on the side? Doesn’t this gender conflict complicate things significantly? It sounds like Coetzee’s other book also complicates these issues and suggests further ambiguity.
    Haraway writes about the continuation of human exceptionalism in modern environmentalism. We can still see ourselves as being distinct from and above animals but see ourselves as ‘stewards’ or as having some responsibility to care for animals but such a position still relies on this divide or even the ‘mind discontinuity’ Gaita suggests as the basis for the moral inferiority of animals. It’s interesting that two opposing moral views, with conflicting applications, could share a central view of the relationship between humans and animals. Where does the radical distinction in what follows arise from? To further clarify this question: what steps are taken to lead from this basic premise—humans are distinct from and superior to animals—to the moral obligation we have to animals—we must act as stewards or, in opposition to this, we have no obligation whatsoever.

    -Katie

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  7. Clifton Miller
    I have been trying to think about what Haraway said on pages 80 and 81. I am not quite sure what she means when she says” I do not think that we can nurture living until we get better at facing death. But also get better at dying instead of killing.”
    When I thing about these words my first reaction is to agree with her but on a very different level. I think that she is trying to say that eating meat is bad and in order to face our own survival of eating other animals we need to see the inhumanity in killing animals. This is where I completely disagree. When I read the quote my initial thought is of dear “Uncle” Ted Nugent. In order to truly connect with what you do to your body, it is important to see things through from the beginning. Killing an animal for sustenance is one of the most rewarding experiences I have ever come across, as well as one of the most enlightening. I realize that in slaughter houses there are inhumane conditions, but this does not persuade me from eating meat, instead I try to justify the meat I do eat by going and getting as much of it as I can. I do agree that many people are not conscious of where there food comes from, an example would be to ask someone from the inner city if they want a hamburger or veal for dinner. If the choice includes killing a full grow cow or a baby that has been locked in a crate for its life, the answer is very different that if the meal magically appears in front of you cooked and garnished.
    When Haraway says that we need to also “get better at dying instead of killing” I agree that the world is overpopulated. There is also a huge sigma against death in the United States. I we accept death on a more personal level then perhaps society will not feel the need to remove itself so far from the food they eat. Instead if we accept death and not fear it people might be able to get closer to what they eat, they way it is raised and ultimately how it is killed.

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  8. April 22, 2009
    Presentation Week
    John S. Sonin
    Eng. 418—Blog 13
    K-1 & K-2
    It’s pretty difficult to talk about language schemes and patterns in docu- fictional literature when one desires to suggest alternative schemes or patterns. It’s kind of like self-psychoanalysis! It seems—and I don’t like to use this word, “impossible”—when every concept I try to expose, the only words I can use and need to us, to try and sway focus from ingrained thought patterns to a replacement pattern, especially when the language I need to use leaves the kind of imprecision that enables readers to construe nothing of relevance, is like self-ingestion to nourish the self. It seems to talk about some other “talk” using the talk I don’t want readers to think is the “talk” can’t be talked, can’t be talked.
    Like I said, I don’t like the word “impossible,” but isn’t this implausible? If all I can say suggests the dichotomy I don’t want to convey, how can I say anything clear? I can say, “Why not trade the “dichotomy” for the singularity?” Or, “Life is a nexus.” In the first sentence, there’s a conflict, obviously, in the second there’s an issue of subjectivity that means there’s an object…conflict.
    God save us on this beautiful day celebrating the gift!

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