To relive the relationship between owner and slave we can consider how we treat our cars and dogs--a dog exercising a somewhat sim...ilar leverage on our mercies and an automobile being comparable in value to a slave in those days.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The suffering of either sex--of the male who is unable, because of the way in which he was reared, to take the strong initiating o...r patriarchal role that is still demanded of him, or of the female who has been given too much freedom of movement as a child to stay placidly within the house as an adult--this suffering, this discrepancy, this sense of failure in an enjoined role, is the point of leverage for social change.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The bad news for animals is twofold. First, in all of these cases--women's rights, the abolition of slavery, ending apartheid--a g...ood part of the political momentum comes from the oppressed themselves. Progress in South Africa never would have begun if blacks there hadn't perceived their own dignity and fought for it. Second, in all these cases, empathy for the oppressed by influential outsiders came because the outsiders could identify with the oppressed--because, after all, they're people, too. With animal rights, in contrast, (1) the oppressed can never by themselves exert leverage; and (2) the outsiders who work on their behalf, belonging as they do to a different species, must be exquisitely, imaginatively compassionate in order to be drawn to the cause. To judge by history, this is not a recipe for success.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »