Sentientism | "Humility should underpin our efforts to understand" - Journalist Marina Bolotnikova - Ep: 114 @Sentientism | Uploaded May 2022 | Updated October 2024, 7 hours ago.
Marina (sentientism.info/sentientist-pledge/marina-bolotnikova) is a journalist in the USA, focusing on factory farming, animal agriculture & the criminalization of activists who fight them. Marina has written for Vox, The Guardian, The NY Times, The Intercept & many other publications. She was an editor for Harvard Magazine. Before that, she wrote & edited for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, The Toledo Blade & The Harvard Crimson.
In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “what matters?”
Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The audio is on our Podcast: apple.co/391khQO & pod.link/1540408008.
We discuss:
00:00 Welcome
01:25 Marina's Intro
- Zeroing in on animal-focused journalism
03:20 What's Real?
- Raised by a single mum
- Jewish but not v.religious (like many Soviet jews)
- Emigrating from Belarus to the USA at 3yrs old
- Growing up in St. Louis
- Orthodox Jewish school to 8th grade but "feeling like an outsider"
- "I was sceptical of the religious stuff from a pretty young age"
- Updating "my religion" on FaceBook as "The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster" in middle school
- Gender segregated classes
- Hearing anti-Arab racist statements in class
- "A profound sense of justice"
- Going vegetarian at 11 yrs old "if we don't have to kill animals... then it's wrong to do that"
- School-mates "did not understand vegetarianism... god gave us dominion over animals... they're happy to be killed & give us sustenance."
- Secular, progressive high-school, but "I wouldn't say that people's attitudes... were particularly different... different reasons... protein, animals not intelligent..."
- Moving to veganism
- "I see everything through an animal liberation lens"
- Secular/scientific/naturalistic worldviews don't guarantee good ethics either
- "I feel a profound connection to alll of life on earth, particularly animals & sentient life... it's something I can't express in material terms"
- Animal ways of understanding can transcend what humans are capable of. Birds navigation, dog smell capability...
- "Respect for non-human life & epistemological humility should underpin our efforts to understand the world - rather than the assumption that humans have the right to manage & dominate"
- "I still identify as Jewish... an important part of who I am"
- Atheists/agnostics within religious communities
- "The way I feel about life & animals can definitely be described as spriritual"
- Human dominionism "is totally at odds with my worldview"
- The harms that can come from religious or naturalistic worldviews
- "Science is responsible for a lot of evil stuff too"
24:00 What Matters?
- Justice
- "I reject any form of violence... & that's what animal agriculture is"
- Different animal intelligences
- "I don't believe there is this single hierarchy of intelligence with humans at the top"
28:37 Who Matters?
- Learning the history of injustice & atrocities & seeing the modern parallels
- "I don't believe in this doctrine of progress..." but things they thought were normal we now see as evil... things we're doing today that will be seen the same way"
- Watching Earthlings (nationearth.com/) at 13. "It was awful"
- "I don't really trust humans to come up with an legitibate unbiased... criteria"
- "Knowledge is inextricable from power"
- Post-rationalisations for self-serving hierarchies
- "Sentience probably comes the closest to how I would explain who matters"
- Fishes, octopuses, bees
- Animal research
- Degrees/dimensions of sentience?
- Minimal moral consideration? Avoiding needless harm & death
- Ethical guard rails & prudence
41:48 A Better Future?
- Human psychology & social norms
- Factory farming vs. "humane" "family" farms & the "one bad day" idea
- Commodification, ownership, exploitation, power, control
- "They're treated as machines"
- "People's minds don't work like perfect rational proofs"
- Pluralism of tactics
- "Direct action is essential"
- "The industry claims it's reforming... it's lying"
- "A positive vision & example... can be more influential"
- "People don't want to think of their food as being about violence & injustice"
- Purity vs. power & effectiveness
- The role of journalism
- Bird flu & "depopulation" via ventilation shut-down "cooked to death"
- "It doesn't really matter as long as people don't stop buying their stuff"
- Vets & researchers enabling animal harm
Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at sentientism.info/. Join our "I'm a Sentientist" wall sentientism.info/wall/.
Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. E.g: facebook.com/groups/sentientism.
Thanks Graham! twitter.com/cgbessellieu
Marina (sentientism.info/sentientist-pledge/marina-bolotnikova) is a journalist in the USA, focusing on factory farming, animal agriculture & the criminalization of activists who fight them. Marina has written for Vox, The Guardian, The NY Times, The Intercept & many other publications. She was an editor for Harvard Magazine. Before that, she wrote & edited for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, The Toledo Blade & The Harvard Crimson.
In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “what matters?”
Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The audio is on our Podcast: apple.co/391khQO & pod.link/1540408008.
We discuss:
00:00 Welcome
01:25 Marina's Intro
- Zeroing in on animal-focused journalism
03:20 What's Real?
- Raised by a single mum
- Jewish but not v.religious (like many Soviet jews)
- Emigrating from Belarus to the USA at 3yrs old
- Growing up in St. Louis
- Orthodox Jewish school to 8th grade but "feeling like an outsider"
- "I was sceptical of the religious stuff from a pretty young age"
- Updating "my religion" on FaceBook as "The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster" in middle school
- Gender segregated classes
- Hearing anti-Arab racist statements in class
- "A profound sense of justice"
- Going vegetarian at 11 yrs old "if we don't have to kill animals... then it's wrong to do that"
- School-mates "did not understand vegetarianism... god gave us dominion over animals... they're happy to be killed & give us sustenance."
- Secular, progressive high-school, but "I wouldn't say that people's attitudes... were particularly different... different reasons... protein, animals not intelligent..."
- Moving to veganism
- "I see everything through an animal liberation lens"
- Secular/scientific/naturalistic worldviews don't guarantee good ethics either
- "I feel a profound connection to alll of life on earth, particularly animals & sentient life... it's something I can't express in material terms"
- Animal ways of understanding can transcend what humans are capable of. Birds navigation, dog smell capability...
- "Respect for non-human life & epistemological humility should underpin our efforts to understand the world - rather than the assumption that humans have the right to manage & dominate"
- "I still identify as Jewish... an important part of who I am"
- Atheists/agnostics within religious communities
- "The way I feel about life & animals can definitely be described as spriritual"
- Human dominionism "is totally at odds with my worldview"
- The harms that can come from religious or naturalistic worldviews
- "Science is responsible for a lot of evil stuff too"
24:00 What Matters?
- Justice
- "I reject any form of violence... & that's what animal agriculture is"
- Different animal intelligences
- "I don't believe there is this single hierarchy of intelligence with humans at the top"
28:37 Who Matters?
- Learning the history of injustice & atrocities & seeing the modern parallels
- "I don't believe in this doctrine of progress..." but things they thought were normal we now see as evil... things we're doing today that will be seen the same way"
- Watching Earthlings (nationearth.com/) at 13. "It was awful"
- "I don't really trust humans to come up with an legitibate unbiased... criteria"
- "Knowledge is inextricable from power"
- Post-rationalisations for self-serving hierarchies
- "Sentience probably comes the closest to how I would explain who matters"
- Fishes, octopuses, bees
- Animal research
- Degrees/dimensions of sentience?
- Minimal moral consideration? Avoiding needless harm & death
- Ethical guard rails & prudence
41:48 A Better Future?
- Human psychology & social norms
- Factory farming vs. "humane" "family" farms & the "one bad day" idea
- Commodification, ownership, exploitation, power, control
- "They're treated as machines"
- "People's minds don't work like perfect rational proofs"
- Pluralism of tactics
- "Direct action is essential"
- "The industry claims it's reforming... it's lying"
- "A positive vision & example... can be more influential"
- "People don't want to think of their food as being about violence & injustice"
- Purity vs. power & effectiveness
- The role of journalism
- Bird flu & "depopulation" via ventilation shut-down "cooked to death"
- "It doesn't really matter as long as people don't stop buying their stuff"
- Vets & researchers enabling animal harm
Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at sentientism.info/. Join our "I'm a Sentientist" wall sentientism.info/wall/.
Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. E.g: facebook.com/groups/sentientism.
Thanks Graham! twitter.com/cgbessellieu
