Against Animal Rights? A Comment on “Contro i diritti degli animali? Proposta per un antispecismo postumanista (Against Animal Right? A Proposal to a Post-human Antispeciesism)”, by Roberto Marchesini

For Horkheimer, the “indescribable, unimaginable suffering of the animals, the animal hell in human society, […] the sweat, blood, despair of the animals” (1978, 66-7) are the grounds of capitalism. However, it is clear that these features are not exclusively capitalistic. Our fear for animality is ancient, profound, ancestral. This fear of ours is understandable, after all, because it is based on the need to mark the territory, identify the pack’s identity, impose a hierarchy. All these elements are obviously deeply related to an animal nature. The homo sapiens shows his animality precisely as he is trying to distance himself from it. This particular animal, then, has had to create conceptual and practical means to protect himself from himself, using his own tools. Herein lies the root of the humanist paradigm. […