The Politics of Animal Rights: Making the Human Connection

Animal Rights is in the air, so much so that the term borders on becoming a buzzword and the cause itself the latest form of radical chic. Although Lewis Gompertz, Henry S. Salt, and others put forth radically different views on attitudes and relations toward other animals more than a century ago, the publication in 1972 of essays by Brigid Brophy, Richard Ryder, and others in the book, Animals, Men and Morals (London: Gollancz, 1971; New York: Taplinger, 1972) and the more popular book, Animal Liberation, by Peter Singer (New York Review, 1975) have sparked another wave of these views and have inspired a spate of college courses, articles in both academic and popular periodicals and radio and television programs on the subject of animal rights. We are reaching the public now with better analyses and better ways of explaining why humans should stop abusing and using other species