Sentientism | "This great unresolved tension of modern life" - Monica Murphy & Bill Wasik - Sentientism 214 @Sentientism | Uploaded September 2024 | Updated October 2024, 1 hour ago.
Bill Wasik is the editorial director of @nytimes The New York Times Magazine. Monica Murphy is a veterinarian and a writer. Their previous book, Rabid: A Cultural History of the World’s Most Diabolical Virus, was a Los Angeles Times best seller and a finalist for the PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award. Their latest book, "Our Kindred Creatures" makes a case for seeing the fight against animal cruelty as a crucial thread in America's history. Readers are introduced to the activists, scientists, and moguls who helped create our modern views on animals, with our intense compassion for certain species and ignorant disregard for others.
In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “who matters?” Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The audio is on our Podcast: apple.co/391khQO & open.spotify.com/show/3c9OG5Mwf7PGChWFYBzuQI.
00:00 Clips!
01:09 Welcome
- "Our Kindred Creatures" as an example of Sentientist History?
03:30 Monica and Bill's Intros
- Writing two books together: Rabid and Our Kindred Creatures
- "...Monica's interest in animals [as a veterinarian] that I think got me interested"
- Telling the story of how the animal welfare movement came to the USA in the decades after the civil war
- The emergence of the modern way of thinking about animals "some of them are like members of the family... others of them in huge numbers are excluded..."
- "Everyday people in cities... were living among all kinds of animals in a way that feels very foreign to us today"
07:18 What's Real?
- Meeting in a church youth group, Bill's family more devout than Monica's
- "It was not a creationist church... there was a sense that we weren't going to doubt what science was telling us just because we were part of a religious tradition that had a different story"
- "'In a world in which there's no god why should we care at all about human suffering?'... runs implicitly through the book - many of the people we write about are religious"
- Links between religion, the abolition of slavery and animal ethics "though of course the slavers themselves had various bible verses that they waved around"
- "Today we're Unitarian Universalists... go to church on Sundays and Bill sings in the choir"
- "Our Unitarian church is a very humanist church... animals don't come up much... some other Unitarian churches have animal affinity groups"
- "There are also a lot of atheistic Unitarians... our church leans atheistic... the younger people even more so"
- "Whatever concept of god that I have wouldn't conform with traditional ones - it's more notional"
- "We came back to religion because of our son... he was a very loud atheist... a disrespectful atheist... we wanted him to expand his thinking"
- "Even though we occupy three different spots in our family on the atheistic side of the spectrum we're very at home in this church"
- "One of the things that makes me hesitate to call myself an atheist is a kind of epistemological humility" re: history and other cultures
- "To say 'now we know better... theistic tradition has no truths to offer'... feels ahistorical"
- "I have found it useful when listening to people talk about religion to swap in the idea of 'goodness' for 'god'"
- The origins of the UK animal movement (and the abolition of slavery) "really coming out of religion... romanticism... individuals and their sufferings... matter to god"
- "Not just to know in some logical sense that slavery must be wrong... but to really feel it... god really looks at the suffering... that is simply intolerable"
- Scientific understanding that animals "are basically built the same way"
- "From a religious lens... our creator... has seen fit to make animals in a comparable manner... therefore they must experience suffering in much the same way as we do"
- "'Brute creation'... getting at the idea that these animals were made by god... we're stewards of their care..."
- Did the 19th Century UK and US animal thinkers recognise the deeper history re: ahimsa / animism etc?
- The focus on law enforcement (e.g. ASPCA) vs. a personal question of concern for animals
25:27 What and Who Matters?
- Monica: "I was a child animal lover... I loved pets... being around horses... became a vegetarian at 14... going to veterinary school"
52:43 A Better World?
01:12:27 Follow Bill and Monica
- twitter.com/murphydvm
- twitter.com/billwasik
- penguinrandomhouse.com/books/634494/our-kindred-creatures-by-bill-wasik-and-monica-murphy
& much more... see sentientism.info for full notes.
#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.
Bill Wasik is the editorial director of @nytimes The New York Times Magazine. Monica Murphy is a veterinarian and a writer. Their previous book, Rabid: A Cultural History of the World’s Most Diabolical Virus, was a Los Angeles Times best seller and a finalist for the PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award. Their latest book, "Our Kindred Creatures" makes a case for seeing the fight against animal cruelty as a crucial thread in America's history. Readers are introduced to the activists, scientists, and moguls who helped create our modern views on animals, with our intense compassion for certain species and ignorant disregard for others.
In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “who matters?” Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The audio is on our Podcast: apple.co/391khQO & open.spotify.com/show/3c9OG5Mwf7PGChWFYBzuQI.
00:00 Clips!
01:09 Welcome
- "Our Kindred Creatures" as an example of Sentientist History?
03:30 Monica and Bill's Intros
- Writing two books together: Rabid and Our Kindred Creatures
- "...Monica's interest in animals [as a veterinarian] that I think got me interested"
- Telling the story of how the animal welfare movement came to the USA in the decades after the civil war
- The emergence of the modern way of thinking about animals "some of them are like members of the family... others of them in huge numbers are excluded..."
- "Everyday people in cities... were living among all kinds of animals in a way that feels very foreign to us today"
07:18 What's Real?
- Meeting in a church youth group, Bill's family more devout than Monica's
- "It was not a creationist church... there was a sense that we weren't going to doubt what science was telling us just because we were part of a religious tradition that had a different story"
- "'In a world in which there's no god why should we care at all about human suffering?'... runs implicitly through the book - many of the people we write about are religious"
- Links between religion, the abolition of slavery and animal ethics "though of course the slavers themselves had various bible verses that they waved around"
- "Today we're Unitarian Universalists... go to church on Sundays and Bill sings in the choir"
- "Our Unitarian church is a very humanist church... animals don't come up much... some other Unitarian churches have animal affinity groups"
- "There are also a lot of atheistic Unitarians... our church leans atheistic... the younger people even more so"
- "Whatever concept of god that I have wouldn't conform with traditional ones - it's more notional"
- "We came back to religion because of our son... he was a very loud atheist... a disrespectful atheist... we wanted him to expand his thinking"
- "Even though we occupy three different spots in our family on the atheistic side of the spectrum we're very at home in this church"
- "One of the things that makes me hesitate to call myself an atheist is a kind of epistemological humility" re: history and other cultures
- "To say 'now we know better... theistic tradition has no truths to offer'... feels ahistorical"
- "I have found it useful when listening to people talk about religion to swap in the idea of 'goodness' for 'god'"
- The origins of the UK animal movement (and the abolition of slavery) "really coming out of religion... romanticism... individuals and their sufferings... matter to god"
- "Not just to know in some logical sense that slavery must be wrong... but to really feel it... god really looks at the suffering... that is simply intolerable"
- Scientific understanding that animals "are basically built the same way"
- "From a religious lens... our creator... has seen fit to make animals in a comparable manner... therefore they must experience suffering in much the same way as we do"
- "'Brute creation'... getting at the idea that these animals were made by god... we're stewards of their care..."
- Did the 19th Century UK and US animal thinkers recognise the deeper history re: ahimsa / animism etc?
- The focus on law enforcement (e.g. ASPCA) vs. a personal question of concern for animals
25:27 What and Who Matters?
- Monica: "I was a child animal lover... I loved pets... being around horses... became a vegetarian at 14... going to veterinary school"
52:43 A Better World?
01:12:27 Follow Bill and Monica
- twitter.com/murphydvm
- twitter.com/billwasik
- penguinrandomhouse.com/books/634494/our-kindred-creatures-by-bill-wasik-and-monica-murphy
& much more... see sentientism.info for full notes.
#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.
![We need to transition [India]... the question is how? - Economist Chaitanya Talreja - Ep:127](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Ja2GV6rwZbY/hqdefault.jpg "We need to transition [India]... the question is how? - Economist Chaitanya Talreja - Ep:127
Chaitanya (https://sentientism.info/sentientist-pledge/chaitanya-talreja) is Assist Professor at TISS in Mumbai. He has a PhD in Economics. Chaitanya’s interests include econ. devt. strategies in the #globalsouth , structural change, econ. devt. & regulatory policy, urban econ, & non-anthropocentric alternatives to value systems in progress & conservation including food systems research (& maybe #SentientistEconomics ?)
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: https://apple.co/391khQO & https://anchor.fm/sentientism.
We discuss:
00:00 Welcome
01:42 Chaitanyas Intro
- Economics as a way to improve the world
03:45 Whats Real?
- Growing up in a #sindhi family in India
- #pakistan , #india & partition
- Having a #hindu temple at home
- An #atheist father he didnt believe in all those things who turned to religion after a difficult time
- I dont believe in god
- Religion has always been a tool to marginalise different sections of the society
- Rejecting faith
- Degree, masters, PhD... questioning things... critical thinking
- Before then, unthinkingly accepting what had been told
- The way you think has real impact on society
- There are several ways of living life and one has agency
- Evidence & reason, ethical & systemic critiques of religion
- Its a very hard task to grasp reality
- I would rather... analyse things around me as they are
- #pluralism
- Naturalistic views of relatedness & interconnectedness
- Finding a balance between defeatist humility & arrogant hubris
22:54 What Matters?
- Being sensitive, as a child, to humans & non-humans
- Growing up in a patriarchal society
- Not cheating, working hard... stopping at red lights
26:49 Who Matters?
- Sindhis typically eat meat, but father said I always felt it was not the right thing to do
- Buying meat from a public slaughterhouse I did not feel comfortable but I used to love it [eating meat]
- Family gatherings centred around #meat everyone around me was relishing... & my father was telling me this is not the right thing to do
- Fighting about eating meat at 4-5 years old
- Visiting the #slaughterhouse this is where it comes from
- #sentience & the dangers of human-defined moral scope
- Collective agreements about moral communities It shouldnt just be about my morals
- #animalrescue dilemmas re: animals consuming animals
- Easy & hard ethical choices
- Ethical & epistemological humility
- We shouldnt be using these moral trade-offs to avoid having a moral scope
- The boundaries of sentience... oysters, #bivalves & #invertebrates
43:40 A Better Future?
- #Hindu nationalism, #castediscrimination #secularism
- #utopia vs. pragmatism
- A world that is more kind & compassionate
- Animal Law studies in Hyderabad There are developments happening
- Animal ethics are not in the mainstream
- #hindutva & the #bjp
- Hinduism, the sacredness of cows & the use of cow products (milk, dung, urine)
- Purity & #caste systems
- India is the largest buffalo beef exporter
- Its a political device to marginalise sections of Indian society... #dalit #muslim #adivasi
- Even vegetarian Hindus consume many animal products
- Hinduism... doesnt actually talk about animal rights
- ...the dominant politics is harming the marginalised humans & also the non-humans
- #socialjustice We can talk about humans & non-humans
- The Tamil movie #jaibhim, eating rats & the oppression of #indigenous groups
- Oppressed people are capable of thinking about non-humans too
- #intersectionality & the #vegan movement
- #speciesism
- #vegan in Indian context, individual change & systemic change
- Seeing caged hens slaughtered every day
- A woman selling fish from the sea. Can I have a conversation with them about non-humans?
- #transition economics, politics, sociology... we should have tools from all these fields
- The fact that we need to transition is not in question... the question is how
- Create more livelihoods without causing harm
- Handling resistance to change
- Asking the right questions about transition (vs. #veganism )
- Thousands of transition paths?
- #SentientistEconomics ?
- There have to be incentives
- Choosing to be optimistic :)
- Even in places of high learning people are oblivious to this idea
- Growth, Eco economics, neo-liberalism
- Kindness & compassion our aim is not just to consume & produce
- Maybe #sentientism can help us further this idea of changing the way we study economics
... & much more! Full show notes at sentientism.info
#Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all #sentient beings.” More at https://sentientism.info/. Join our Im a Sentientist wall https://sentientism.info/wall/.
Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. E.g.: https://www.facebook.com/groups/sentientism.")
