In the Shadows of Dominion: Anthropocentrism and the Continuance of a Culture of Oppression

Abstract

The oppression of nonhuman animals in Western culture observed in societal institutions and practices such as the factory farm, hunting, and vivisection, exhibits alarming linkages and parallels to some episodes of the oppression of human animals. This work traces the foundations of anthropocentrism in Western philosophy and connects them to the oppressions of racism, sexism, and ethnocentrism. In outlining a uniform theory of oppression detailed through the marginalization, isolation, and exploitation of human and nonhuman animals alike, parallels among the groups emerge as the fused oppression of each exhibits a commonality among them. The analysis conducted within this work highlights the development and sustainment of oppression in the West and illuminates the socio-historical tendencies apparent in the oppression of human and nonhuman animals alike

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