“Homocentrist” … from a glossary

HOMOCENTRIST (AKA ANTHROPOCENTRIST)
The view that the environment and nature exists primarily to serve human needs along with the implication that the
environment may be exploited justifiably in the interests of the human population.

Some people take the term “homocentrist” to refer homosexuality, or the astronomists and mathematicians see the term as something that has one center (comparable to the solely abstract use of the morpheme “homo” in “homegenous”).

However, I, along some others like the people who wrote this glossary for instance, understand the term as factually meaning Homo, the Latin Human, like in Homo sapiens and Homo erectus, etc. and -centrism (it’s not “Anthro-sapiens”).

The usage of the term “Homo” makes most sense to me to be applied in an etho-ecological context, because exactly of the way in which Linnaeus demarcated a line with the word “Homo” for the very some beings on top, the Homo sequence, and all other phenomena he named were decidedly placed below.

The animal kingdom was bio-logically relegated into sub-castes that had hardly anything to do anymore with their human animal “peers”.

So homocentrism means being centered on humans or on the human. A legitimate interpretation of the term I believe.

However. Oh and just something else that I quickly want to note, and that is, how surprised I am that I could not find anything in Google under “a vegan ecology”. I hope something can be found soon … !!

 

Carnism

Where one could probably find her regularly …

“A Colombian drug trafficker, known as the ‘queen of cocaine,’ has been killed in the city of Medellin,” the BBC writes. “Griselda Blanco, 69, was shot dead by gunmen as she was leaving a butcher’s.”

Carnism – the term coined by psychologist Melanie Joy, as far as I understand defines how people take certain nonhuman animals to be associated with their own human lusts for eating them, while at the same time it would be repulsive for them to think of eating animals that are not so called “farm animals” or animals that people hunt, for example.

In other words we are conditioned to attribute certain lives with certain stances we have towards them. And as far as the animal and “meat” – complex is concerned, the horrific outcomes of these type of attributions are what makes our minds work either carnist and speiecsist, or hopefully vegan / (strict) vegetarian and compassionate and caring about life.

The inability to relate to the factual and natural world …

I think the disregard of the other, as the specific “other” that we face in nonhuman animals, the disregard of the “intelligence-fostering” potential of connecting on a basic interspecies level, is what causes a human to be speciesist, this inability to recognize this animal “other”, is the fundament on which ignorance in a human individual sets itself from the beginning of his individuated existence.

If a society stopped being speciesist, we would have a new segment of history in which humans were able to “feel” and “think”.

However … visit: http://www.carnism.com – a great project.

Impacts one can make through arts

This is a linoleum print by Farangis Yegane:

Links regarding the subject: IMPACTS ONE CAN MAKE THROUGH ARTS,

i.e. isn’t that visual communication!

Holocaust Art Impacts Visitors (article at http://media.www.universitychronicle.com) follow link here

“Certainly, it’s a stretch to point to one single work of art as having changed the world. Nor can one point to any one single event or person as having accomplished that. The root of all change is a (grass-roots) movement: monotheism, democracy, industrialization, environmentalism; the list throughout history is immense. All of these have art as an integral part, directly or not, because art is a part of all human endeavors.” – Susan Lucier http://artmutt.blogspot.com

follow this link here for the complete essay

“Art is not a mirror to reflect reality, but a hammer with which to shape it.”
“Kunst ist nicht ein Spiegel, den man der Wirklichkeit vorhaelt, sondern ein Hammer, mit dem man sie gestaltet.” – Bertolt Brecht

The Whole Ball of Wax

Can Art Change the World?

A Holistic Theory by Jerry Saltz

“In concert with other things, however, art can change the world incrementally and by osmosis. This is because art is part of a universal force. It has no less purpose or meaning than science, religion, philosophy, politics, or any other discipline, and is as much a form of intelligence or knowing as a first kiss, a last goodbye, or an algebraic equation. Art is an energy source that helps make change possible; it sees things in clusters and constellations rather than rigid systems.”

follow this link for the complete article on the http://www.villagevoice.com/ site: here

My two cents are:

If an artist admits that “art can change the world” she is aware of her responsibility. She is okay with being held responsible for the message she puts across.

… A poem by Marion Canby

… a meadow … with nesting life
spared by a mower’s blade set high
the flowering weeds and grasses strewn
over the field to be raked and dried
by rays from a fire set high in the heaven.
From: High Mowing by Marion Canby, 1932

I came across this poem in an opening quote, namely in “Leadership” by James MacGregor Burns. This stanza is amazingly beautiful. Googling I found that Willa Cather must have been in contact with Marion Canby….