John Sanbonmatsu – författare

Offers the most powerful case yet for ending our exploitation of animals for foodMillions of Americans see themselves as "conflicted omnivores," worrying about the ethical and environmental implications of their choice to eat animals. Yet their attempts to justify their choices only obscure the truth of the matter: in John Sanbonmatsu's view, killing and eating animals is unethical, regardless of whether they are "free range" or factory farmed. Shattering the conventional wisdom around the meat economy, he reframes the question of animal agriculture from one of "sustainability" to one of existential and moral purpose, presenting a powerful case for the total abolition of the animal economy. In a rejoinder to Michael Pollan and other critics who have told us that we can have our meat and our consciences, too, he shows why "humane meat" is always a contradiction in terms.The Omnivore's Deception provides a deeply observed philosophical meditation on the nature of our relationship with animals. Peeling back the myriad layers of myth, falsehoods, and bad faith that keep us eating meat, the book offers a novel perspective on our troubled relations with animals in the food economy. The problem with raising and killing animals for food isn't just that it's "bad for the environment," but the wrong way to live a human life. A tour de force of moral philosophy and cultural critique, The Omnivore's Deception will change the way we think about meat, animals, and human purpose.

Critical Theory and Animal Liberation is the first collection to approach our relationship with other animals from the critical or "left" tradition in political and social thought. Breaking with past treatments that have framed the problem as one of "animal rights," the authors instead depict the exploitation and killing of other animals as a political question of the first order. The contributions highlight connections between our everyday treatment of animals and other forms of social power, mass violence, and domination, from capitalism and patriarchy to genocide, fascism, and ecocide.Contributors include well-known writers in the field as well as scholars in other areas writing on animals for the first time. Among other things, the authors apply Freud's theory of repression to our relationship to the animal, debunk the "Locavore" movement, expose the sexism of the animal defense movement, and point the way toward a new transformative politics that would encompass the human and animal alike.